New Game Plus
by whodidthewhatnow
Summary: After the last adventure of Han Jee-han in the world of Gaia, he is transported into the world with a Dungeon. He seeks to find a new purpose in life while having fun in process and making a name for himself. With a chance encounter he joins a Familia and his adventures start.
1. New Game Plus

AN: I did a thing, I'm not sorry.

~~~~~~~~OOO~~~~~~~~

"Infinite mana arrows!" I said while pointing my staff towards my enemy, who expertly weaved around the hundreds of magic arrows going after him. Fucking precog ability, that's totally cheating!

"What happened Gamer, losing steam?" Said my infuriating opponent before he dodged to the side as another attack came from the air, this time from my air elemental Zephyr, before my fire elemental Salamander and Lightning elemental Lei continued the assault. To my side my companions from the Nine Gates did their own support to my attacks, and we where starting to overwhelm the fucker in front of us.

Yes, I know, I'm swearing a storm even on my own head but I think I'm entitled to at least that for what he did.

Mom, dad, Sun-Il, master Loli, they all fell to him when this madman concocted a plan to open Gaia's true nature to the whole world. It only involved killing an harvesting a tremendous amount of thought power and souls, far too much that could be safely handled by the Abyss, and the bigshots called for aid from all Shinjin class ability users worldwide.

I had really come a long way since that fated day when I woke up seeing the names of everyone on top of their heads, worrying Sun-Il and being taught by master Loli. Now I was one of the strongest natural ability users on the planet with my levels almost touching on the fourth digits and I had became strong enough to protect myself and those I held dear.

Or so I thought until this motherfucker appeared.

He gathered an incredible amount of followers, both ability users who he employed against en masse, and normal people that acted as his personal cult. It was still unknown how he managed to do even a tenth of what he accomplished, but for me I didn't care one iota of that. I only wanted him dead, by my hands if necessary.

The other shinjin ability users keep the pressure on this monster as I deactivated my ongoing skills and I prepared my strongest spell, one I barely had mana to cast even with all my skills lowering the overall cost of all my skills. It had a long charge time but it's effects were devastating. As power poured into my hand and formed itself into a spear of light, I aimed my attack at the enemy.

"Brahmashirsha Astra!"

He looked at me surprised for a moment before smirking, an almost identical spear forming into his hand, with five rings at the tip of it's head. "Bhramanda Astra", he said and threw the spear.

The two weapons hit each other, and though I had leveled my own attack over the years to the exhausting point I had yet to prestige it. Still it was a relief that he had used such attack to counter mine since the reverse couldn't be said, but it was also chilling that he held this trump card with him and yet he didn't thought to use it beforehand. I'm fairly certain that my companions if they had something on that scale they would be throwing at him without reservations.

"That was close", he said while fanning himself, "it would have seriously inconvenienced myself if that hit. Now, for the grand finale~"

He gathered more energy into his hands and let out a hail of black attacks to hit everyone. It was literally impossible to dodge and it pierced magical protections like it wasn't even there. I only survived because I had maxed Physical Endurance a long time ago and Prestiged it twice, once into Dragon Blood Blessing and All Creation Oath of Safety, the first being the invulnerability conferred to Siegfried on the legend and the other being the one granted to the god Balder into myth. Still even with those abilities the attack managed to pierce me and deal a good chunk of damage to me.

"So you're still alive? Guess I put too much effort into anti-regeneration, anti-immortality, anti-invulnerability effects into the attack and forgot to simply pack a stronger punch, huh? Well, it doesn't matter. You will be dead soon anyway, after all you're all alone."

It was true, my companions had all perished on the last attack and I was alone. I was low on mp relatively speaking, low on hp and most of my equipment had broken down from how long and brutal this conflict had been. Still, I had one last trump card.

"Don't get cocky", I told him while bringing my inventory and drawing the weapon that would win this war, "it's only over when it's over."

The weapon I pulled looked more like a drill than a sword even if you were supposed to use it like that. It was red with guard inlaid in gold like substance, cylindrical with three moving parts and was named after a god.

It was a weapon I was loath to use since in it's lowest setting it could raze a city and blow up mountains alongside always, always breaking a illusion barrier it was in. Most of all, it worked even outside a illusion barrier regardless of witness, being a dangerous weapon without equal.

It would also instantly kill me if I ever used it at full power, but it was more than enough to end this threat once and for all. I just hope that using it won't blow up the continent we're in with the bleed out effect of the attack.

"You wouldn't dare", my enemy said with fear, if not in his voice then in his observe status panel. "The nine gates entrusted this weapon with you because you would never use it, and you know that nothing less than it at full power can stop me!"

"Things change", I told him as I started charging the sword power, dodging the follow up attack from my enemy. He was desperate to stop me, but I had trained enough with this weapon on the wilderness to keep up the charge time even while being attacked, and I had just enough mana to bring out my defenses and set up my evasive skills.

"Just die already!" He yelled as a spear of light hit me on the gut, and I felt like fire was pouring out my insides, but I still keep up the charge time, until it was ready.

Through the haze of pain I smirked. "Enuma Elish!" I quickly teleported to his face and unleashed the attack, air, space and time distorting while the world shifted and a new reality was imposed over the previous one, preferably without that asshole in it.

Sadly I was disappointed by the sight. Standing in front with his body mangled, but still very much alive, was the fucker I wanted to kill.

"What... it takes to kill... you", I asked, already feeling the effects of the weapon destroying my body as a price for using it at full power.

"You just did", he said in an almost calm tone, "though I will be the last one laughing." He brought his two stumps together and created some kind of vortex just as reality crashed around us back into the real world, to the sight of the bodies of his various cultists. "The ritual is complete, and it has just enough leftover energy for a last fuck you towards you. You, no, your soul will never reunite with your loved ones. Fitting, for someone who claimed to had been my enemy only for vengeance and a need to protect his loved ones."

With a last effort I charged at him with my weapon in hand before cutting him in half, but he had already finished what he started and I fell on a mass of darkness, and I knew no more.

~~O~~

I woke up on the ground, my clothes shredded into rags and bloodied and a howl of sorts around me. I gingerly stood up before something behind me caught my attention and I immediately rolled away from the axed coming at my neck. Looking up, it was some kind of monster resembling a kobold, thought it was closer to a dwarf werewolf if I were to be honest with myself.

"Spinning Mana Arrow" I said on reflex, but nothing came. I didn't panic, because somehow I was expecting something like that, why I still don't know, but at the same time it was annoying as hell. I quickly tested some of my other skills, and nothing worked.

Suddenly I saw more of those kobolds coming from the walls, almost as if the cave had birthed them, which was eerily reminding me of a MMORPG with it's respawn features. Not even an illusion barrier gave me that impression and I had gamer powers!

Still the situation felt nostalgic. Surrounded by enemies, no weapons, no armor, no magic, and an inexplicably serene demeanor to myself I would only question later. I could't help but smile, remembering simpler times, even if my life was already n danger back then.

Standing up, I looked at my enemies dead in the eyes before uttering the only thing I could come up with.

"Bring it."

I had no intention to taunt them and make things worse, but hey I did eventually got the skill Bravado. Got to use it once in a while.

~~O~~

The kobold in front of me charged and I meet him with a sidestep and knee on his gut, grabbing his axe as he tipped over and in a single motion I decapitated him. While I didn't raised much my blunt weapon mastery, and I still think that axes counts as bladed weaponry, it was also a simple weapon to use and I had trained extensively in a couple of them in order to raise my mastery skills and martial arts skill since I just keep getting more and more of those weapon drops I never get to use.

The monster dissipated into black smoke leaving some kind of gem stone on the floor but I ignored it for now and dodged the second and third follow up attacks from the surrounding enemies. One of them managed to lightly clip me on the side, and much to my relief the wound had disappeared almost instantly meaning I still had Gamer's Body running. I kicked one of the other charging kobolds while slashing at another in the skull, splitting it's head open.

Ugh, this was easier when I could fly and spam mana arrows at them.

Entering the guard of one of the kobolds I disarmed him before slashing at his gut once and then swinging my weapon towards it's throat upwards. Two more kobolds came at the same time and I blocked the attacks before countering with my own. I might not be a master axeman, or even a master swordsman, but after fighting so long you do pick up some things on how to generally handle yourself in a fight.

When the latest kobold fell I could see even more of them charging me and I sighed in annoyance. Less about the enemies around me, and more about the showing I was giving. From going toe-to-toe with gods to struggling against a small horde of scrub tier monsters I had really fallen far. I was grateful that I was still alive, but if the price of using the Star of Creation was to go back to normal it was one more incentive to never use it if I can help it. I know I should be more surprised at my current poor showing, but somehow once more I wasn't exactly surprised by this turn of events.

I dodged a strike that came within millimeters of gouging out my eye from a spear form another kind of monster, probably a goblin by it's looks, and once more I sighed and got my head back in the game. Those monsters aren't going to kill themselves, after all.

~~O~~

As the last enemy fell I took the time to look at the loot they dropped, some kind of gem stone. Sadly I didn't had my skill observe so I couldn't really check what it was, but now that I had a bit of breathing room I could do a few things.

"Status", I muttered and my status window appeared, though it was different from what I was used to.

Name: Han Jee-han  
Age: 55  
Gender: Male  
Class: The Gamer  
Job: Adventurer  
Title: none

Level: 1

Health: [GREEN]  
Mana: [BLUE]

Power I 0  
Endurance I 0  
Agility I 0  
Dexterity I 0  
Magic I 0

V$: 0

I winced at being reminded at my age, even if I don't look like it. So what if I spent an inordinate amount of time on the time dilated dungeons? I did managed to figure out that youth extending spell anyway. Shacking my head I went back to more important things. My level went back to one and I was missing the 'stat' tags where my level up stat points were supposed to go, so I probably had to increase my abilities another way. I also had lost my intelligence and wisdom stats, being jammed together into the magic stat. Convenient, though I will certainly miss the enhanced intellect effect having both at high level gave me.

Good bye perfect recall and genius level tactical acumen, I will miss you both.

I had two 'speed' characteristics, one that probably governed my dodge value and another to govern my accuracy value. While I prefer the old stat sheet I can work with this.

"Inventory", I said, getting the normal panel and this time I felt incredibly annoyed, even if in hindsight I should have expected it. Everything was gone, and by everything I mean my crapload of shit I had accumulated and just put on my endless inventory for safe keeping. From magical items to normal items to completely useless items, everything was gone. My equipment screen also showed me only wearing my casual clothing that by now became a bunch of rags and the axe I stole from that kobold earlier. Well, soon my inventory will be full of those small gems I got, but even so losing everything had hurt. Some of those stuff were irreplaceable rare items, and some had sentimental value, and a good portion of them I had made myself.

Taking a deep breath to calm myself I start collecting the gems on the ground until everything was done.

"Skills", and this time I was greeted with my familiar panel, and with a quick thought I changed it form the basic grid to a list format for ease of use. I admit I'm a bit ashamed that it took several years for me to stumble into that mode, but it's not the time to dwell on that. The skill list was depressingly short, but it was more informative than my stats screen.

Gamer's Body  
Gamer's Mind  
Gaia's Magic

I instantly noted that those skills didn't had levels, even Gamer's Body and Mind had levels before, even if they came out maxed. Their descriptions haven't changed so I looked at the other skills.

Gaia's Magic  
The ability to use magic as a native from the world of Gaia

Well, that was promising. Looks like even if I missed some my previous skills there's a chance I can regain them as they were, or close enough I suppose. It also implied somehow that using magic as a native of Gaia was actually a big deal, but without more information I wasn't quite sure on what to think about it right now. Hopefully when I find civilization I can set some thing straight.

Inventory filled and with weapon in hand, I set out to get out of this cave. Hopefully things will make more sense outside here.

~~O~~

I found a couple of stairs leading both up and down, and logic dictated I went up since I was underground. As I did so the number of monsters appearing went down a bit and I could more easily deal with them. I keep getting the gem stones of the enemies since they must be useful for something, until I reach the cave exit and I'm greeted with the sight of a city. I was already deep into the night and the street was mostly empty, save for a couple of people that were coming in.

A party of five, they all wore some of the worst kind of breastplate I ever saw before which offered little protection on the chest area while leaving the more vulnerable stomach area completely bare. It barely counted as steel hater top! They also had swords on their belts and were wearing a backpack, looking suspiciously like a group of adventurers. In fact they kind of reminded me of the character sprite for apprentice on the MMORPG Ragnarok Online. Except the apprentice in that game at least was wearing actual breastplate.

"Uhm, excuse me?" I asked the group coming to the cave entrance, and they stopped once they saw my state. I wasn't looking good with several parts of my outfit torn and ragged, I looked more like a hobo than anything. "Can I ask a few questions? I'm a bit lost and I want to get some information."

The man on the left most side, short with a five o'clock beard, looked at me up and down before answering. "Heh, looks like you're a complete newbie. Did you even register at a guild before entering the dungeon?"

"Assume I know nothing", I told them and he barked a laugh at my expense.

"Heh, a real newbie. If you want some info go to Babel. They have night shifts just for this kind of emergency even if they don't encourage people adventuring at night since almost everything is closed at this hour."

"And where is Babel?" I asked, and got your standard 'are you stupid' look from him.

"It's the bloody tower that reaches the heavens you dolt. How did you miss it when you got to Orario?"

I looked around and sure enough there was a gigantic tower that reached the heavens. "Huh. How did I miss that?"

The man shook his head before continuing walking, followed by his companions. "Whatever newbie, just don't get yourself killed on the first floor with that thing on your hand." With those parting words and a last barking laugh they entered the dungeon.

Well, now I have something to work with at least. So long as I can get some sleep and food, anything's fine really."

~~O~~

Inside Babel I found a place that bought the gemstones, or magic stones as they were called, which gave me some currency and allowed me to eat and take a shower. I had to pay a premium for them though since I was outside the Guild standard hours, but fortunately they had a good enough service in case of emergencies like these, after all 'some adventurers prefer to hunt at night with the lesser competition' or so the saying went as a woman dressed like a waitress said.

Once more I had to pull the 'assume I know nothing', and I passed myself as a country pumpkin that got hilariously lost before entering the dungeon by mistake, after all I don't think they would simply buy my 'I woke up there after fighting a battle the save the world', not if the suspicions I had were bearing fruit.

"Thanks for having me in, miss Eina", I said to the elf in front of me, though she looked more like a half-elf since aside from the ears her face structure and body type leaned more towards a human one than the waif like an elf posses. "I appreciate it."

She just nodded with a stern expression on her face. "You should be ashamed of yourself for risking your life like that. Did you just randomly walk around the city before deciding to enter the dungeon? Didn't you ever heard of stories about Orario?"

I just shrugged, earning a glare from her. "I have a talent to have things escalate pretty quickly around me, much to my detriment. Fortunately I got experienced enough to survive my own stupidity", i said a bit in a self depreciating manner, hoping that admitting to my thoughtlessness would help curb some of her nerves, "but I think I hit my head or something, because my memories are all jumbled together into an indecipherable mess, so if you would be so kind to tell me everything I need in order to survive, I would appreciate it."

She frowned at my remark, "I think we can spare some spirit healing if you had a concussion this serious. If that were the case I advise you against going back to the dungeon", I could hear the 'ever' in that remark.

"I know my limits, and it isn't the first time I was beat silly until I couldn't distinguish up from down and left from blue."

"Don't you mean left from right?"

"I know what I said."

There was a small pause between us two before I continued. "Anyway about that information?"

"What do you actually know?"

"Hmm, I remember my name, the name of my hometown, the names and faces of my friends and how to fight." I said before remembering my cover story, "and wandering towards this town I guess, before going into the dungeon for a bit of exploration."

"Ha~~~~~", she sighed, "why I always have to deal with the troublesome cases?"

Once more I shrugged before starting to listen to her lecture, I knew it would be a long one but so long as I get some actual information out of it I'm fine with it. Afterwards I would rent a bed and get some well deserved shut eye. Damn, it's been ages since I'm going to sleep because I'm tired.

~~O~~

"... I'm sorry. After all you did, this is the best I can do for you." Said a sad feminine voice before I felt myself reply to her.

"It's fine. You already did a lot for me, after all I'm a Natural Ability User, right?"

I felt more than saw her smile. "Thank you for being understanding, but shouldn't you wake up now?"

~~O~~

You slept on a bed. Your Health, Mana and status effects where completely restored!

Well, at least there's still that. As I properly woke up I stretched my back before setting out for the day.

As Eina said before a proper adventurer is part of a Familia, formed after a god who descended from heaven created a guild of sorts and bestowed their blessings on mankind, the Falna, that allows them to fight against the monsters on the dungeon. The gist of it is that the dungeon is apparently infinite, or so large and so deep nobody ever saw the bottom yet in recorded history, and adventurers explore it for glory, fame and riches.

So standard adventurer fare.

The basic idea for today was to affiliate myself with a Familia so I can be officially inducted into the adventurer ranks since technically I'm just an unfortunately lucky 'kid' that got caught in the dungeon business by mistake. If I want to become an adventurer I need the patronage of a god or goddess in order to receive my Falna but I suspect, no I'm certain that I already have it. Now I could try my hand at being into a well established Familia to get some support for myself, but I didn't wanted people to ask questions when they inevitably found my Falna, whatever it looks like which I had to explain how I got it, which would probably lead to asking me what I was doing on the dungeon, which would lead to...

Damn, even with my wisdom reaching past one hundred I still had a lot of blindspots in my thinking. So much for supernaturally high common sense stat. Now that it had probably dropped back to normal human norm I would be back to my mostly reckless ways. Well, not like I ever stopped being reckless but if current me can call past me reckless that should tell you how reckless I was before.

The plan was to find a small Familia, preferably one that was just starting out and join it while it was on it's starting stage, and then I would join and probably rise in prominence on it, and slowly make a name for myself while I was on this world.

Yes, world. I knew that I was on another world, and the last words of that motherfucker came to mind. Somehow, perhaps it was gamer's mind, I was at peace with this, and decided to take the most of my situation. Besides I made a living in the Abyss, it won't be much different this way.

Now, if I could only find that Hestia Familia I heard about...

~~O~~

It didn't take long until I found the headquarters of the Hestia Familia. All I had to do was ask around for the goddess Hestia and people would point out to me to a certain direction in the city until I found a building that looked suspiciously like a catholic church in a state of disrepair. Reaching the door I knocked it three times loudly before waiting for a response.

I had to wait for a bit but I could hear footsteps from inside the building, until it finally opened.

"Excuse me, I would like to... huh?"

For a moment I was confused as there was nobody at the door before I looked down. I was greeted with a youthful girl that barely reached my chest if at that (though to be fair I got another growth spurt when I was eighteen and became a couple of centimeters taller to my already taller than average height). She had her long black hair tied in a twin tail with a pair of ribbons with a bell motif. She had round blue eyes a cute face and... well...

I called her a girl, but even with her height she's definitely a woman with those curves and that much chest area. I soon realized that I was staring and that was rude. "Sorry. I was looking for the goddess Hestia, I wish to join her Familia."

"You do?" She said with hope in her eyes before grabbing my hand and pulling me in, "come in, come in! Bell, there's someone else who wants to join my Familia!"

As the petite girl lead me inside I heard more footsteps coming in our direction, and a boy about a head taller than the small woman came to greet us. He had silver hair and red eyes, and it kind of reminded me of a rabbit to be honest. He looked friendly enough at least, and was wearing a set of casual clothes with a knife strapped on his back. "Is it true that you also want to join our Familia? There's only me here for the moment and it would be really nice to have someone else with us."

I nodded. "I have my own reasons to become an adventurer, mostly because that's what I did before coming here and my prospects at finding another job are pretty much nil, and to be honest I seek the excitement that this life bring". It was hard to admit that to Sun-Il, and he wanted to strangle me when I confessed to him, but honestly after so many time spent grinding, so many quests performed and so many denizens of the Abyss I had to deal with I simply wasn't cut out to live life normally anymore. You only had to look at Part Time Magician to see how a powerful Abyss denizen would have so much trouble fitting in on normal society.

"Isn't it wonderful Bell? You don't have to go down on the dungeon alone anymore!" Said the smaller woman to the boy and they both hugged each other. Ah, brotherly love, how nice to see it in action. "Are you just starting out yourself or are you an experienced warrior?"

"I'd like to think that I saw my fair amount of battles in my life", I replied to her and she nodded.

"I see, then I would welcome you to my Familia and gladly grant you my blessing."

I blinked at that for a moment. Did she just said what I think she said? "Are you telling me you're the goddess Hestia?"

"Of course", she said pompously before narrowing her eyes. "Is there a problem?"

I was expecting someone taller I wanted to say but decided to be diplomatic, "I never meet a goddess before", in this world at least, "I didn't knew what to expect."

Her eyes narrowed further into slits and puffed her cheeks. "You're lying. If you can't be honest with the future head of your Familia we will start on the wrong foot."

Lying? How did she caught that? With my Gamer's Mind active I can have the best possible poker face without having the actual 'deception' skill on hand, unless...

This time I narrowed my eyes to her. "I heard gods that descend from heaven have their powers sealed, but that doesn't mean they are entirely powerless, right? So it isn't so far off to know you have an ability, or at least a superlative skill in determining falsehoods, right?"

"That's not inaccurate", she admitted, "though we are barred from using our Arcanum, we still have abilities that reflect our purview as gods."

"I see, then let me try again", I said before cleaning my throat, "'I never meet a goddess in this world before'".

She blinked at me once, twice, before tilting her head. "I think there's a story somewhere there."

"And you'd be right. If you have the time I can tell you all of it later."

She slowly nodded. "You're still not being entirely honest", she lowly muttered with her eyes cast down. Oh well, if I got busted there's no need to hide it anyway.

"I thought you would be taller", I admitted, and she fell down on her knees, a look of despair on her face.

"Why people keep saying that. There's nothing wrong with my height. Beeeeeeell, I'm being picked on!"

The boy, Bell, quickly went to her side and started consoling her while patting her on the head and I found the sight... cute actually. Like an older brother consoling his little sister, though if she's the goddess then their circumstances should have been reversed but whatever. "Sorry if I was rude", I apologized to the duo, "but I really want to join your Familia. Is there something I need to sign or some token I'm awarded with to make it official?"

Hestia quickly recomposed herself, before standing up. "No, all you need to do is to take my blessing and swear fealty to me. Now, please pull out your shirt so I can engrave the Falna on your back."

I nodded, before pulling it out and turning, before hearing a gasp from the goddess.

"You already have a Falna? But you said it's the first time you meet a god. Then how?"

"This is the least I can do for all the services you rendered to me. While I can't help you directly anymore, go knowing you have earned my blessing twice over."

"Thank you... Gaia."

I blinked at the strange memory, before turning around with my suspicions confirmed. "I think I know what's going on, and it relates somewhat to my story if you want to hear."

They both nodded and I motioned them to make themselves comfortable, it was going to be a long story.

~~O~~

At the end of my tale they both had their eyes bulged in surprise. I can't blame them to be honest, though it was a bit surprising for both of them to act like they believed my story without problems. Hestia I could understand considering her lie detection skills, but Bell appeared to be a mundane boy so he's probably a bit too trusting. Something that could be dangerous in his line of work.

"You, you fought to save the whole world", said Bell in awe while looking at you, his eyes sparking. "That's incredible Jee-han Hyung!"

So I finally got called that, eh? Guess I got some respect after all this time. Still for him to call me 'hyung' meant that we were speaking korean right now, or some kind of magic was in place that allowed me to understand and be understood by them or something. My money is on the second one to be honest. "It was a group effort to be honest, and the motherfucker still had the gall to technically survive my final trump card, at least long enough to give me a final fuck you out of spite. At least I'm still alive and he isn't."

"Still that doesn't explain why you have a god blessing already." Wondered Hestia as she took another peak to my back. "If you came to another world, how that's possible?"

Instantly I assumed what I dubbed 'lecture pose number seven'. Man, my tutoring skill sure got a lot of use those past few years. "As I said before Gaia empowered certain individuals with a certain ability, and we called them Natural Ability Users. Those had powers similar to those blessed by gods in this world, except with more variance in effects and power. As Gaia was the Planet Will instead of being a mere goddess her power was unimaginable, and if she somehow knew in advance about the world I would fall in, it shouldn't be too strange that she could bless me in the same way as the gods of this world. Technically speaking, that would make me the sole member of the Gaia Familia, even if the head is currently AWOL."

"Hah..." sighed Hestia, "I wish I could have initiated another adventurer myself, but I will take what I can get. Do you want to know of your status Jee-han?"

Hmm, it's not like I can't see it whenever I want, but it would be interesting to see the process which they do it here. "Sure, why not?"

"Then sit down and turn around please."

I complied and she quickly set out to work. I saw from the edges of my vision a faint blue light before Hestia gasped. "Already three skills..." she softly said and not too long later it ended, with her giving me a piece of paper for me. Looking it over aside from a couple of numbers I couldn't understand a single thing it was written there, so magical translation was the reason I could understand anything. There was a couple of changes from my latest view on the sheet, but nothing too drastic. The only thing of note was the section that was blank. I handled the piece of paper back to Hestia before turning around.

"What does 'Gamer's Body', 'Gamer's Mind' and 'Gaia's Magic' mean", asked Bell as he took a peek to my character sheet.

Time for lecture pose number three. "They were both skills I had back in my homeworld. Gamer's Body allows me to live my life as a video game, twisting myself and the world around me to emulate electronic games, like games of adventure or shooting to RPGs. It's end result is very similar to getting a Falna since most people, even those with power, didn't had such convenient representation of their abilities, though I'm not entirely sure the full extents of this skill in this world."

"What's electronic?" Whispered Bell to Hestia.

"What's a video? And what ar-pee-gee means?" She replied with her own whispered question.

I decided to ignore that for now, plenty of time to tell them stuff later. "Gamer's Mind is a skill that emulates the detachment a 'player' have when playing a game, since while a 'character' can show strong emotions, be surprised and perform irrational behavior by being victims of powers or the plot, a player simply controls the character and isn't affected by those effects, and can even take their time to choose the most optimal option when prompted, simulating a character quick thinking and planning skills. As for Gaia's Magic it's a new skill I never had before, but I believe it will allow me to use magic in a way closer to that of my homeworld than what you use here, though I'm unfamiliar with the specifics."

"Hmm", pondered Hestia as she looked at my character sheet. "It's unfortunate that you are only level one and with such low levels in your stats, but certainly with your experience you can bridge that gap."

I just shrugged, "they were at zero when I woke up on the dungeon yesterday, though I was hoping they would increase more after going climbing up the four levels of the dungeon."

Both Bell and Hestia blinked at the same time. "Four levels?"

I nodded, "had to kill a couple of monsters in the process. Got a bit of money out of it, but not much since it was late at night when I arrived and they charge some money to exchange on their off hours."

"Where's your armor, where's your weapon?" Hestia asked, surprise evident in her voice as if what I did was rather extraordinary.

Frankly I'm not sure why she's so surprised. I did say I was an experienced fighter and she can confirm I'm not lying, after all. Still I took the small hand axed I had grabbed from one of the kobolds. "Here. I had to steal this from one of the kobold like creatures in the dungeon and used it to kill my way through the dungeon."

She stared at my broken, cracked weapon but before she could say anything Bell started, realizing something. "Wait, you said the kobolds were using weapons? But they only use their claws and teeth while fighting!"

I simply shrugged, "special enemies? About half of the enemies I killed held weapons, so I didn't think much of it at the time."

Both Bell and Hestia looked at each other for a moment before looking back to me. Hestia sighed before looking back up with a small smile. "At least things will be interesting from now on, and Bell won't be alone on the dungeons anymore."

"Please take good care of me Jee-han Hyung!" Said the boy in an earnest manner and I nodded. He seemed like a good kid, it would be a waste if he got seriously hurt while hunting alone.

All in all, things seen to be progressing rather good. Perhaps I will take it easy for a couple of days, get myself settled before going back to the daily grinding. I was kind of missing it after reaching the level I had, since even killing thousands of high level monsters gave me a pittance of experience. The thrill of combat, earning xp and raising your stats is one of the best feelings I ever had, and it will be good to be back at it.

It felt so good that I thought nothing could go wrong.


	2. Birth of a Crazy Duo 1

"So Bell, can you explain to me where I can get some set of actual equipment? I rather not have to try and steal my next weapon and armor from my enemy, you never knew where they were", though if it were in some games like Final Fantasy Tactics where the enemy is wearing unique, utterly overpowered weapons and armor I wouldn't mind stealing them.

"Oh, the Guild can provide with weapons and armor on loan for first time adventurers. I can take you there if you want."

"Thank you", I nodded and we departed to the Guild building. We passed through the ruins section of the city before entering one of the main roads straight into the Guild building, which was close to Babel. "I will introduce you to my advisor too. She will probably help you too get settled on Orario, even if you already fought in the dungeons before. Oh look, she's there. Eina!"

Who greeted me was the by now familiar face of the probably half-elf bespectacled woman. "Ah Bell, do you need something?" She tilted her head when she noticed mytaller form behind him. "Jee-han?"

"Hey", I waved at her as Bell went towards his advisor. "Look who joined a Familia recently?"

"Did you regained more of your memories since yesterday?" She asked with concern on her voice before, making Bell slightly confused.

"Memories?"

"Some things came back, while others are still far away. I'm holding up though, and I'm already combat capable if you're wondering that." I said before pausing. "Well, except for that fact that I'm only armed with a half broken hand axe and have no armor. I heard you guys give weapons and armor on loan for first time adventurers?"

"Yes, we do", she said with a nod and her expression becoming more stern, "do you wish to formally become an adventurer, a professional one?"

"There are amateurs?" I asked, genuinely curious about that prospect.

"Some people enters the dungeon without fully understanding what it entails, some goes as far as entering without the blessing of a god. If you plan to join the ranks of the professional adventurers it's better if you heed the advice of the Guild."

I nodded in understanding. "Sounds fair I suppose. By the looks of it I will be needing to fill some paperwork or something, right?" She nodded and I turned to Bell, "why don't you go ahead on the dungeon? I will probably be around here for a while so I will catch up with you later. Just don't go too deep and I should be able to find you."

"Sure thing Jee-han. Eina, I will be off then, please take good care of mister Jee-han." He said with a bow before turning back and heading off.

"Bell, wait! ...he's gone." Eina sighed before shaking her head. "He's always so reckless. Now mister jee-han, please follow me and we will get everything in order."

Nodding I followed her, knowing this would take a while. Still, the translation spell must be adapting to teach me the local language since I'm hearing 'mister' now. Convenient, that.

Sitting on the chair across her she pulled a couple of papers and showed them to me to read, which I couldn't. "Hm... will this be a bad hour to tell you I'm illiterate?"

She stared at me trying to discern any falsehoods, before sighing once she found none. "This will take a while."

~~O~~

When we finished several hours had passed. She taught me of the proper system of exchange for magic stones and directed me to the stores that would sell essential equipment, like common medicines, weapons and armor that wasn't on loan by the Guild. She also taught me a bit of the monsters on the first four floors, but advised for me to stay on the first floor since I was a complete beginner. Meh, the goblins and kobolds were complete chumps last I fought them even when they outnumbered me.

They also had a bit of selection for arms to loan, so I took a long sword and a breast plate. An actual breast plate, not the horrendous thing Bell was wearing. Sure its overall more expensive compared with the standard knife and not-breastplate Bell was wearing, but it wasn't by much and I thought the better quality of the equipment were worth it. It's a bit harder to move in it than bare chested, but once again not by much and I can handle the small discomfort.

"Make sure to stay on the upper most floors", reminded me Eina, "and remember, an adventurer shouldn't go on an adventure."

I just nodded, not really trusting my voice not to say something sarcastic. Frankly she reminded me of Sun-Il at his greatest mother hen phase.

As I remembered my childhood friend I sighed. He died as the conflict started to pick up pace, considered both a dangerous foe and a leverage to make me lose my resolve. Now he was on whatever afterlife was more fitting to him, and even if he reincarnates a thousand times we will never meet each other again. Not like we would remember if we had ever meet each other after reincarnating, but it's the thought that counts.

I closed my eyes, sending a silent prayer to an entity that likely couldn't hear me, and I entered the dungeon.

Time to earn my keep.

The dungeon entrance was a bit crowded, with several teams waiting in a line to enter and it reminded me of some MMORPGs where you formed a line to enter the maps where a special event was unfolding. "Is it always like this?" I asked someone else on the line as I waited for my turn.

"Only at this hour. It's common sense to enter earlier to avoid the rush hour but it couldn't be helped this time." I nodded in acceptance before waiting like the rest, looking at everyone and everything, trying to discern details and information from them.

I had lost the ability to see people's names, levels and titles at a glance in this world but that's to be expected since that was a more blatant aspect of Gaia's influence about my powers. Still I had a theory that I could re-learn some of my previous skills if I trained hard enough with them. Hopefully this theory will pan out in the end.

... still, that's a pretty damn big line.

~~O~~

Even with the line not really stopping it still took nearly an hour to enter the dungeon, but waiting for so long paid off in the end in more ways than I hoped.

Through a special action the magic skill Observe was created!  
Observe: Use Activated  
A magical skill that allows one to learn information about a target. More information can be learned at higher user level and higher ? rank.

And it only took me looking at several different stuff as if my life depended on it, though considering that I got Observe after looking at a single enemy intently the first time and now it took me nearly an hour of constant effort while looking at several people, their equipment and even some of the architecture around me meant that skills would be hard to come even if they were simple before I came here. I shudder to think what it will take for me to relearn some of my best skills, and what kind of hell I will need to go through in order to relearn Brahmashirsha Astra once more. Then again it might be a good thing for me not to learn that spell, being at least four times stronger than a Brahmastra on it's lowest level, it was utterly devastating and could wipe out a large city like New York or Seul with a single strike.

I don't think there will be anything in this world that requires that much firepower.

"Observe", I muttered, but nothing happened and I frowned. I brought my skill list and sure enough, the skill was there so something else was wrong. Looking back at the skill description I noted how it was a 'magical skill', so this time I brought the Magic list which I learned was a thing yesterday when Hestia gave me my character sheet.

I was greeted with three empty panels, and once I clicked on one of them another panel appeared with a single icon on it. Changing it to a list sorting I saw that it was my observe. Clicking on it the skill appeared on the formerly empty panel. I toyed by putting the skill on any of the other empty panels but there wasn't any noticeable change so I left it where it was initially. Closing the panel I looked at someone else and muttered observe.

Jason Mint  
Age: 22  
Class: Blessed Adventurer  
Job: Adventurer  
Title: none

Level 1

Health: [GREEN]  
Mana: [X]

Power I  
Endurance I  
Agility H  
Dexterity H

Bio: A beginner adventurer that specializes in bows. Member of the Ganesha Familia.

Not nearly as useful as I initially thought but then again observe did started out quite basic. The fact that I can't really see the full health of the target other than a general full green bar was a bit annoying, but I will take what I can get. It was also interesting to see that he didn't had the magic ability, so it's not something that everyone could perform. In that regard I was fortunate that I was allowed to keep my magical talent. I wonder if Bell had magic.

That aside I noticed my own Mana bar sliding down a bit and slowly regenerating itself. Very, very, very slowly. While I didn't had a numeric value to represent my health and mana anymore, differently from my other traits, I did had an instinctual understanding of some of it's hidden values and I knew that it would take quite a while for my mana to regen itself to full. Hopefully with an increased magic stat things would change.

In the end I got how the magic worked for me. I got a magic skill and I had to equip that magic skill in order to use it. I had only three magic slots to equip my magic and they took a chunk of my mana bar when I used it, which regenerated at a glacial pace.

Looks like it will take a while for me if I want to become a magician once more. Back to basics I guess.

Time to sword my enemies to death.

~~O~~

There was a large hallway on the first floor which was named Beginning Road, and once we passed it the group I was following in spread out themselves to do their own thing. I did the same in order to map out the dungeon. Literally, in this case.

"Minimap", I said and sure enough a map of the region appeared in front of me and I was glad that I retained that feature, though it had it's own quirks. I need to have a map item on my inventory for it to work right since I don't have Gaia acting as a GPS anymore, and I had to keep a blank sheet of paper on my inventory if I wanted it to display on a new location. Fortunately blank paper was cheap enough and I bought it in bulk for my needs, alongside a map for the first floor to make sure that my minimap was working as intended.

With sword in hand I walked through the dungeon, exploring each hallway and room, all around me hearing sounds of battle from the other adventurers fighting the monsters. I turned into a few rooms where adventurers where fighting against monsters but they looked like they had it well in hand.

"Observe".

Name: Goblin  
Race: Goblin  
Class: Monster  
Title: none

Level 1

Health: [YELLOW]

Power I  
Endurance I  
Agility I  
Dexterity I

Bio: The lowest kind of monster in the dungeon. Can pick up lost weapons and use them.

Name: Kobold  
Race: Kobold  
Class: Monster  
Title: none

Level 1

Health: [RED]

Power I  
Endurance I  
Agility I  
Dexterity I

Bio: The lowest kind of monster in the dungeon. Can pick up lost weapons and use them, though it's rare.

The two lowest grade monsters were dispatched quickly by the adventurers fighting them before they noticed me there. "Hey you, what are you look for?"

I raised my hands in a placating gesture, "just looking. First time in the dungeon, that's all".

"Yeah? Well, get back to your own business them, we're busy here!" The rude man said before picking a dagger and starting to disembowel the monsters. "Why are you still here?"

"What are you doing?" I asked, a bit curious. My answer was another glare from him.

"I'm going to pick up the magic stone, what does it look like?"

"Oh right, that. Sorry, just got a brain fart, that's all. I will be on my way." Looks like to anyone else the body don't disappear on a black smoke once they kill their enemies. Looks like my original 'loot' power is kept intact, even if it wasn't all that unique to me since 'loot plundering' was a thing on the Abyss. I just took that to a whole new level.

Turning back from the room I continued searching for some monsters to kill, with little success. After about half an hour of wandering the hallways did the wall at my side cracked and I prepared myself. A kobold emerged from it and was ready to charge at me first thing but I was faster and had already plundered my sword on it's chest, twisting it and slamming the monster on the ground for some extra damage. The creature whined once, before dissipating into black smoke and leaving behind a single magic stone the size of my nail.

Putting it on my inventory and I set out to the deeper floors, since this wasn't working. Perhaps at floors two or even three I will have more luck? When I arrived here yesterday there were more monsters coming after my hide before, but then again it was already late at night and there were few people coming in the dungeon. Perhaps until I get a feel for the dangers of the floors I should come only at night or dawn to avoid the rush hours? Heh, it reminded me of my days playing MMORPGs to be honest.

~~O~~

I was on the third floor which was still packed with people, and I still had killed a grand total of about three monsters after the course of one hour on the dungeon. The other adventurers protected their spots jealously and there was always a group of people going in and out across the hallways like a typical RPG character going in and out trying to trigger random encounters.

Though even with the rush hour, this was ridiculous. There's no way I can make a living killing monsters on the upper floors like this, let alone get stronger if that's how much opposition I will have while here. I was getting annoyed and though Gamer's Mind prevented me from acting irrationally from extreme of emotions, even protecting me from certain status effects like Berserk and Confusion it was still irking me to no end the current state of affairs. This felt like logging into a free-to-play server of a popular game and finding it packed with people.

I didn't dare to go too deep in the dungeon since I still need to find Bell and at the fifth floor onward the difficulty would ramp up slightly and I rather have some backup from someone more experienced like Bell to at least know when to run and cut my loses. Still, I was getting really irritated by this turn of events.

"Come on!" I yelled to no one in particular, letting my frustrations get the better of me for the time being, "is this the better you can do? Are you even trying to kill me, or are you afraid? Give me your best shot you coward!"

Through a special action the skill Taunt was created!

What, really? Out of all skills that would come back easy it's that one I get? I looked at the skill description and was surprised by it's content.

Taunt  
The skill to taunt and enrage a target. Skill effectiveness increase with user's level  
Very High chances for nearby enemies to switch targets to yourself  
Moderate chances for increased encounter rate  
Low chances for inflicting Berserk on a single target

All around me cracks started to form on the walls. One, two, four... ten cracks total, no wait, there are also some in the ceiling and one on the ground too. I readied my sword as the enemies came into view taking a moment to growl menacingly to me.

... I was fine with this.

Charging at an enemy in front of me I chopped off the top of it's skull, ignoring its death to go straight to the next enemy in line. Group battles were a grim, dirty thing, different from duels between two contestants. In a duel you can see both fighters using a lot of fancy techniques if they are good enough, but on group fights the rule of survival was basically to kill an enemy with a single strike and going at the next enemy immediately without letting them catching you off guard, since being held up for so long against a single enemy meant the ones behind you had a clear shot to your back and wouldn't hesitate to kill you with a sneak attack. There's no place for honor on the battlefield.

I stepped back and used the pommel to smash a goblin coming at me from behind, hearing a light 'crack' as I hit it's skull. Since the goblins where smaller it was easier to get head shots on them. I took the enemy taking a few steps backs as an opportunity to kick it back towards a couple of more goblins trying to swarm me while I quickly turned around and slashed at a kobold on it's tight earning a howl of pain before I turned to it's companion, disemboweling before twisting myself and finishing the kobold I had cut on the tight earlier. With this I created a gap in their formation and I quickly put all of them in front of me and I caught my breath for a moment before the enemies came charging at me once more.

They were relentless and had some degree of team work going on for them as they tried to circle me and never got in the way of each other, but making them get in the way of each other was mostly my job and I knew how to do it really well. Shoulder tackling a kobold back while tripping him made a patch of the floor the other enemies had to either turn around or jump over to get to me, and I showed them what happened if they tried to stay on the air as soon as it happened. When they turned around it became easier for them to block the passage of those behind and I keep tripping and throwing the enemies whenever possible until I managed to cull down those numbers into a manageable size and I started to finish off those enemies I had tripped before hand.

In no time all my enemies had been killed, and I started collecting the magic stones with a grin on my face as I confirmed that my health bar was still at high levels.

Yes, this is more like it.

~~O~~

I grabbed the last of my magic stone and put it into the inventory, thanking planetmom that things inside of it stacks if they are similar enough. It would drive me mad to have to look for each individual magic stone I put there after I killed a hundred of those enemies. Not bad for about two hours of work. My basic idea had been simple: go to a large enough hallways and start taunting the dungeon until it coughed enemies for me to kill, kill them, ?, profit! It was genius in it's simplicity, really. The only sad thing was that at some point the same section of the wall and ceiling stopped giving me more monsters once I kill enough.

I could still hear the sounds of battle around me coming from the other groups, which meant the rush hour was still going strong. I was tempted to turn back and have some lunch, but frankly with Gamer's Body I don't need nearly as much food as a normal human, the status effect Starved only coming in after a whole day passes with me not eating anything, so I can work with only supper if I have to.

Looking at my blade I couldn't help but grin at the youthful reflection on it. I had tweaked the youth retaining spell to keep my looks on my early twenties, and I'm glad it's effects where still in effect. It was a rather high level spell after all, derived from a couple of minor related spells that I had prestiged before, technically counting as a life extension spell instead of a true youth regeneration spell.

Back to more important matters though, my blade was already starting to get bad from all the fights I had. I think the goblins and kobolds hide counted as at least leather armor and their bones where quite tough. Only when I got a good hit on their skulls on certain softer parts I could cut clean though it, but otherwise they resisted my blows quite persistently. As a result my blade was already starting to show signs of wear and tear, I probably need to invest on a whetstone to properly maintain my equipment. My armor is still in good condition, but that's mostly because I didn't get any good hits in. Hmm, if I want to regain my Physical Endurance skill I need to take damage but doing so in the dungeon is too risky. I guess I will need to do that, and though I'm loath to resort to such methods that skill saved my life more times that I can count.

A crack opened at my side but I simply elbowed the goblin before snapping it's neck as it came out of the wall, appearing on the world already dead and turning into black mist as soon as it touched the ground. I grabbed the magic stone before sighing. Should I head back to keep the outside and turn in my money and buy some more supplies, or keep going until my health hits fifty percent?

A man running for his life with a broken sword came in, and I turned my head to see he was being chased by a dungeon lizard, a somewhat rare monster compared with the goblins and kobolds that came to the bucket load. While I killed plenty of them with my taunt skill I had seen only seen about a dozen of the dungeon lizards being spawned by the walls.

"Observe".

Name: Dungeon Lizard  
Race: Lizard  
Class: Monster  
Title: none

Level 1

Health: [GREEN]

Power I  
Endurance I  
Agility I  
Dexterity I

Bio: A lizard type monster that walks on all fours and attacks with it's bite.

So the guy running from the lizard probably messed up when attacking and got his weapon broken. With a quick roll to the side I let the lizard go past me and I stabbed it on it's hind legs, making the creature hiss in pain before I jumped on it's back and stabbed through it's head, killing it instantly and getting my magic stone.

I made a decision, and started to look out for the entrance to the fourth floor. I will throughly explore this floor at a later date, for now I want some more spending money, so I can start stock pilling on essential pots. Wonder how much would cost mana potions.

~~O~~

The fourth floor was more empty with certain sections of the dungeon, notably those away from the floor entrance, where I didn't need to use taunt for enemies to appear to me.

Still taunted the hell and back of the dungeon though, since to be honest the monster of this floor were all push overs, but even with their pathetic showing their greater taunt aided numbers managed to clip me a couple of times and I'm down by twenty five percent health and soon I would be pressed to return. It would be tempting to continue doing this until my health lowers to twenty five percent, but I wanted to play it safe for now until I got a good handle on my current limit.

Or I could stay here until I finally unlocked that mastery skill I was waiting for. Either a slashing weapons mastery or a sword mastery is fine by me at this point. When I heard some stepping sounds coming I prepared my weapon, but instead of seeing a goblin or a kobold running towards me it was a very red looking, and slightly cow stinking Bell,

"Hey Bell, what's uuuup?"

He promptly ignored me and keep running at top speed back to where I knew the floor entrance was located. What happened to him? I looked back on from where he came from, but nothing appeared from there. Also, I'm not really sure if there's anything with that much blood on him, it was a veritably shower of blood that he found himself in since there was no splash marks on his clothing that indicated that he were fighting with whatever did that to him. I had half a mind to follow him when the walls started to crack and another group of kobolds came in from the walls.

"Is that the best you can do? I saw little girls hitting harder than you!" Though calling master Loli a girl was a misnomer since she was already above... I can't do it. Not even in my head I can say her real age without feeling my Gamer's Mind to work on overdrive to suppress the shudder of deep seated horror I felt after first mentioning her age out loud.

When those last words came out of my mouth I heard more cracks on the walls coming from a long distance, not only the wall sections nearby me, and the kobolds that were already halfway through the walls howled in challenge, foaming at the mouth. Probably they got the status effect Berserk on them.

Challenge Accepted.

Well, at least taunt makes sure they focus on me instead of other people. I would feel terrible if some adventurer got killed because I was taunting the dungeon.

Dodging the sloppy attack of the enraged monster I put my head back into the game and started hacking at my enemies, sparing a brief thought to how long it would take for me to get that damn mastery skill.

~~O~~

"He he, yandere dungeon", I said with a giggle as I walked back from the streets towards the guild building. It was already noon and soon the primary exchange booth would close, and I didn't want to pay a premium for my nightly exchange from the more shady exchange booths (and wasn't that a kick in the nuts when I figured that out) or stay on that damn line that goes on and on and on.

"It's not like I send monsters to kill you because I care. Idiot", I muttered once more suppressing my giggle.

"What are you talking about mister Jee-han?" Came the voice of Eina as she came out of a booth, having finished talking with one of the adventurers she advise. "You seen to be in a good mooooo what happened to your armor?"

"It's a joke from my homeland, you wouldn't understand the reference I think", I said. I only knew the word yandere since I watched and read plenty of manga and anime on the internet, and there was plenty of video links to stuff on gaming forums after all.

"As for the my armor", I looked at where a kobold had gotten lucky and scratched my side, tearing some small chunks of it leaving three deep gashes on it. In the front there were some holes where the kobold stabbed at me leaving some large finger sized holes where my lungs where supposed to be. "Some kobold with unusually tough claws did it to me", it didn't helped that it was in a berserker state, and that it was a lot of kobolds instead of one. "No need to worry though, I'm fine", which was true. Even with them berserking my health only dropped to a little under fifty percent, enough to make my health bar turn yellow, but nothing to worry about.

"Let me see your body!" She said in a desperate tone, and the people around us stopped for a moment before focusing on us.

"Uhm, Eina, phrasing."

She realized what she said, turning a deep crimson. "Let's just... go to the private booths and talk alright?"

There was more snickering and she blushed even more, quickly scurrying to one of the private booths for us to talk to. Once there she demanded to see how hurt I was and I complied. As expected she saw my bloodied clothing, but underneath it there was unmarred skin. She sighed in relief but looked clearly curious as to how I managed that feat.

I debated with myself for a while before deciding to tell her the technical truth, the best kind of truth. "I have a skill that helps me with healing."

She looked pensive for a moment before nodding. "You're really lucky to have developed this skill as early as you did. Plenty of adventurers got themselves killed by not taking care of themselves."

I shrugged, already used to the way the Abyss worked. The strong lived, the weak died or became a mana battery. It was a truth that my friend both tried to protect me and warn me against, both in the sense that he didn't wanted me to be kidnapped and in the sense that he didn't wanted me to involve myself in the shadier dealings of the Abyss. Not that it worked, but it's the thought that counts, right?

"I was always been hard to kill", I said lamely to her before putting back my shirt on. "Still it's a shame the armor is damaged. Do I get a discount to repairing her if it comes from the guild or is it cheaper to buy another one?"

"I'm sure the guild can loan to you another one. If you diligently train on the upper floors you will be able to pay us back in no time, so don't worry about it and worry more about your safety."

Once more I shrugged. "Alright, though I plan to pay my loan as fast as possible though. Specially now that I have to get some new set of armor. Now if you excuse me, I'm going to exchange my magic stones and drop items if you don't mind."

"Oh please, go ahead", she said while standing up, "here, let me lead you to the booth."

I nodded and followed her, getting into a small line on it. "Uh, if you don't mind me asking, where are you keeping your magic stones?"

"Magic", I told her and she got a surprised look on her, "though technically it's a skill instead of a proper magic spell, but it's good enough to carry lots of stuff."

"Two skills so soon..." muttered Eina, "you're really lucky, did you know that Jee-han. Most adventurers takes years to get even a single skill, let alone two. Even high level adventurers don't have that many skills themselves."

"I was always a very skilled person", I said with a chuckle, though most of my early skills were related to gaming before I got The Gamer, and then I had myself more skills than a World of Warcraft character.

"You're from the Hestia Familia too, aren't you Jee-han?" Eina asked, looking at me form the side.

"Yes. What about it?"

"You seen to be a more reasonable person, recent accident aside. Please make sure to help curb some of Bell's recklessness."

I snorted at that. Who I am to tell others about recklessness? Still I had to say something reassuring I suppose. "I will help him to the best of my ability."

"That's all I ask. Oh, you're there already."

Sure enough I was already in front of the booth so I brought my inventory and pulled my stack of magic stones, taking a handful of them.

Then another, and another, and another, and another, until the box was overflowing with the little magic stones. When he got the magic stones inside the booth I opened back the small drawer and put the rest them into it.

When that finished I took my drop items, the items that remains when a monster is killed which symbolizes how stronger than the norm that particular monster was, all ten of them. five kobold nails, four goblin fangs and one dungeon lizard tail.

As I impatiently waited for the clerk to exchange my earnings for the day I took a glance around, seeing some of the other adventurers looking strangely at me until I saw Eina standing there, slack jawed while staring at me.

What's gotten into her?

"Did, did you loot the corpses of some of the adventurers you found on the dungeon?" She said with her voice a bit higher than normal.

"Really now? I thought I was higher on your esteem than that. If I found them dead on the dungeon I would bring them here for a funeral, not look at their pockets for loose change."

She sighed in relief before her eyes widened in realization. "How many monsters did you kill? How deep did you go?"

"Fourth floor", I said, "and I think I killed about a three hundred and something? The overwhelming majority were kobolds but I killed plenty of goblins and quite a few dungeon lizards."

The other adventurers looked at me with surprise, and some scoffed. For a moment I wondered how many monsters a typical adventurer kills through the day. Assuming a group of five monsters come out of a room each twenty minutes after eight hours of work that's about only twenty four encounters per day. On the other hand if they get the same amount of monsters each five minutes that's nearly a hundred. Hmm, yeah, that's how it went.

To be honest I was slightly disappointed with myself, even back on my scrub days I could kill a hundred zombies in less than one hour, but then again zombies, and I had more skills aiding me at the time. Hopefully when I get my mastery skill I can increase that number significantly.

Back to Eina though, she looked pissed. "You went to the fourth floor. Alone. On your second day, and you claim to have fought over three hundred monsters. Why didn't you run away earlier? What where you thinking?"

"Now now, don't be like that", I said in a placating tone, "I wasn't seriously injured. Everything turned out to be fine in the end, and I might not look like it, but I'm actually quite experienced in monster slaying."

She looked right into me, once more trying to divine any falsehoods like Hestia could. "Are you really a level one adventurer? You did say you lost your memories yesterday."

"I didn't had a Falna until yesterday if that's what you're asking, but I have plenty of experience killing monsters and making the most of the skills I have." Once more thank you Sun-Il, Sae-Young noona and master Loli. "But if it sets your mind at ease I will probably team up with Bell from now on to make things easier. I'm not in a hurry to die, after all."

She sighed in relief, before something clicked on her head and her eyes widened in horror. "Oh gods, there are two of them, and both Bell and Jee-han are of the same Familia. They can team up." She seemed to be weak on her knees and I caught her before she hit the floor.

"Are you alright Eina?" I asked her with concern, and she weakly nodded once before straightening herself up and looking sternly at me.

"Jee-han, you need to promise me not to do something as foolish as that again."

"Define 'foolish'".

"You know what I mean!" She said harshly, "I saw the state of your armor and if you fight against those odds the chance is that you will get seriously hurt or get yourself killed. As an adventurer you shouldn't go on an adventure, least you get yourself killed. Don't you fear death?"

I was silent for a moment thinking on my reply, and when I opened my mouth the window of the booth opened and the clerk handled me a heavy bag of valis.

"We will talk more later, it's already late and I still need to go back to my Familia." I said and she glared at me.

"This isn't over Jee-han." She said after a few moments, still frowning at me.

I just sighed. "I promise I will talk more with you. Later. See you tomorrow Eina."

With those last parting words I left, but I still count hear the faint voice of Eina back in the guild.

"What I am going to do with those two..."

~~O~~

"I'm home", I said as I entered the church, descending the stairs and reaching where we were sleeping for now. I was sharing the couch with Bell while Hestia got the bed, even if she made some insinuations about Bell sharing her bed with him, making the poor boy flustered.

"Welcome back", said Bell with some primitive toothbrush.

Hmm, need to get my essentials tomorrow with the money I just got. I hope either Bell or Hestia can help me with that.

"How did you day go?" He asked and I flopped on the ground, creaking my neck and sitting with my legs crossed on the couch, my two arms spread as I stared at the ceiling.

"Tiring, but profitable. How much do I need to contribute to the Familia's general funds. Fifteen, twenty five percent?"

Hestia looked up from where she was staring intently at Bell while pouting. "You don't need to worry about it right now. Just get yourself settled for now, but for future reference the usual tithe is only about ten percent, though Bell likes to provide more out of his own pocket even if it's not necessary since I also work myself."

"Let's call it twenty five percent then. Do you have a bag?" I said while bringing in my inventory and pulling out roughly twenty five percent of my earnings of the day. "I hope it's enough for general expenses. This place sure is falling apart at the seams."

"It's not that baaaaaWOAH!" Said Hestia when she looked at the amount of money I brought, about sixteen thousand, five hundred vali. "Where did you get this much? Did you steal from someone, you didn't had to go that far!"

"Why people keep calling me a thief or grave robber?" I said a bit annoyed at the implication. "I earned that money fair and square by killing the monsters and taking their stuff." I said with a huff.

"Sorry, it's just unusual to see that much money available." Hestia admitted with a blush. "I mean, not on your second day in the dungeon. But you didn't need to give us all your money, you can keep it for yourself. We are three people now, and if we all chip in we won't be in dire situations."

"Actually, that was the twenty five percent cut I was talking about. For myself I got sixty six thousand vali total, so I still get nearly fifty thousand for myself, plenty to stock on essential civilian and adventuring gear for myself."

They both bulged their eyes at my admission. "You're incredible Jee-han hyung!" Said Bell in an earnest tone. "As expected of someone who saved the world once."

I scoffed at that before flopping down on the couch. "I just grinded a lot. Got a new skill to help me with that by sending increasing the monster encounter rate. More xp, more money, can't really complain."

"Another skill?" Asked Hestia, "that's highly unusual, it's your fourth skill already right?"

"Fifth", I corrected her, "I got another skill, a magical skill called observe. Allows me to see other people stats and general information, though for now only bare bones of information is available."

"You also got magic", said Bell with a sigh, "haaaah, I really wish there was a way for me to increase my stats faster."

"I think there's a way for that, but first we need to get some more money first to get some more decent arms and armor. Then we can go grinding like crazy."

"Of course", he said while muttering 'whatever grinding means' before flopping back on the opposite side of the couch.

"Hey Jee-han", came Hestia voice and I opened my eyes, "don't you want to update your stats now?"

Right, I didn't even look at my stat screen today. Guess I need to take a peek at it more often since the level up mechanics are different now.

As I flopped down on the bed without my shirt, got over my back. "Hey Jee-han".

"Uh?"

"Did you had someone back in your world?"

"What do you mean?"

"Someone that you well... liked."

I was silent for a moment before I replied with my own question. "What prompted that question?"

"I mean... I'm just curious that's all. And maybe you can give me some tips?"

Tips? I looked up from where I was and saw Hestia blushing while taking a glance at Bell. Heh, so that's how it is.

"Sorry", I told her, "but I had no one. I tried going out with a few girls, but it didn't worked quite as well. I was still single when crossed to this world. As for tips... well, the only thing that I know works regardless of circumstances is to be honest. If it were to work out between you and whoever you have in mind being honest is the right thing to do."

"I see, thank you Jee-han, for everything."

"Huh?"

"You came here only yesterday and is already bringing in more money than both me and Bell combined in a single day, and you plan to further help Bell become stronger while keeping him safe. I really appreciate the help you're giving to us."

I stayed silent for a moment before just shrugging. "We're family now, right? And family help each other, so no big deal."

"Right." She said and I could almost feel her smile when she said that. "There, done. You raised your stats quite high today. It really shows that you worked hard."

"Heh, you saw nothing yet, just wait and see until I pick up some steam."

Name: Han Jee-han  
Age: 55  
Gender: Male  
Class: The Gamer  
Job: Adventurer  
Title: none

Level: 1

Health: [YELLOW]  
Mana: [RED]

Power I 1 - 39  
Endurance I 1 - 30  
Agility I 1 - 35  
Dexterity I 1 - 40  
Magic I 0 - 20

V$: 49500


	3. Birth of a Crazy Duo 2

_"Will I ever see them again?" I asked the being in front of me, dreading the answer._

 _"Would it really matter? A soul reincarnated doesn't remember their time on the afterlife, and eventually everyone will return for another spin at the wheel of karma."_

 _"I know souls that were intimately connected once in their lives would eventually find themselves attracted once more in their next lives. My mother, my father, my friends, I would eventually meet with all of them. Will I be denied that?"_

 _"I'm sorry", she finally answered, "but you are already far out of my grasp. This is only a recorded message, if an intelligent one, used to guide you on your next life. I can't bring you back, and even if you had the power to travel between worlds there's no guarantee that you can find me once more."_

 _I felt like I had been stabbed on the chest, and for the first time since acquiring Gamer's Mind I was at complete loss of words, confused, angered, despaired and generally unable to properly think. It was difficult to breath and my mind was working on overdrive, reminding me of the good and bad times I had with those I cared about that I would never see again, neither in this life or the next._

 _A hand caressed me on the cheek. "I truly am sorry for what happened, but unfortunately I only have enough power to keep yourself alive after using the star of creation and to give you my last blessing, one that will manifest itself once you arrive into your new world to fit it it's metaphysics while giving you something close to what you already had. This is the least I can do for all the services you rendered to me."_

 _There was regret in her voice before she closed her eyes and kissed me on the forehead affectionately, like a mother would their children. "While I can't help you directly anymore, go knowing you have earned my blessing twice over."_

 _"Thank you... Gaia", I said at last, and the ground I was standing in shattered and I fell into the darkness._

~~O~~

You slept on a bed. Your Health, Mana and status effects where completely restored!

When I woke up I saw Hestia nestled between my legs and Bell chest. It was a bit uncomfortable, but I managed to slip away without waking both of them before I took the little goddess on my arms and putting her back on her bed. While the sight was cute I think that would be too much excitement for the poor boy of fourteen.

I stretched my back, hearing a loud popping sound before scratching my chin. I need to take this day to buy some things for me, and probably start cleaning up the place to get a proper sleeping room. Probably repurpose the upper floor into proper rooms, but I need to clean up the place, take a lot of trash out and buy a couple of screens to make it work. Hestia can keep the actual room for herself as the head of the Familia.

I will probably have to ask Hestia to show me around the city in order to buy my stuff and the supplies I'm thinking on bringing, though it's probably wise to ask her opinion on the matter. Or perhaps I could make her write down a list for her to buy while I go and make some more money for today, while I think that forty nine thousand was a good number I doubt it was enough to buy everything. Hmm, speaking of writing down stuff, I need to take some time and become literate in this language. While I could understand everyone well enough, I had absolutely no idea what any of the characters meant. It wasn't chinese script or western alphabet and definitely not korean.

"Fuaaaa~" Bell yawned on the couch, blinking his eyes and slowly waking up. "Good morning Jee-han".

"Good morning to you too", I nodded to him before he too stretched himself and started to get ready for his day, "are you going to accompany me to the dungeon today?"

I shake my head, "no, I was thinking on going shopping. While my armor didn't got totaled it's currently unusable, I need to buy a whetstone, not to counting I need to buy a few knick knacks for myself, like hygiene products and a larger set of clothes since what I'm wearing is already getting too torn down. That doesn't count the fact that I plan to refurbish the whole church to make it into a proper home, let alone a good enough headquarters for the Familia."

"You really have thought it through, Jee-han hyung. I mean you're only here for two days and already have a plan of action." He said while brushing his teeth.

"What I have are ideas instead of plans to be honest. I'm sure Hestia wanted to clean this place up, but with you tied most of the day going to the dungeon and the low amount of funds she couldn't do much I believe. Now that there are two of us we can have enough money to cover basic expenses and start improving our house."

He nodded before sighing. "Haaaa, I wish I were as reliable as you Jee-han hyung, sometimes I feel like I'm not contributing much."

I looked at Bell for a moment before walking towards him and slapping him behind his head.

"Ouch!"

"Don't say that. I had friends and mentors to help me, not counting the fact that I have years of experience in monster hunting and general combat while you're still a young newbie. It's only natural for me to have an edge for now, though it's also natural for someone in my position to help a young clueless adventurer like yourself", I said with a teasing smile, "just you wait, with my guidance you will be standing shoulders to shoulders with the best in no time flat."

"Heh, I really hope so Jee-han hyung, maybe if that happens..." he trailed off, with a dreamy smile on his face. I raised an eyebrow at him, but choose not to comment on what he was fantasying about.

A few minutes later he was done and left the church, leaving me with the unenviable task to wake up the little goddess so she can help me with my personal things and perhaps help cleaning up this mess.

... maybe I should go to the dungeon, after all.

~~O~~

Gamer's Mind proved it's worth once more as I struggled over the utterly boring task of cleaning the place, chopping wooden benches into firewood, sweeping the floor until it was utterly clean, taking away broken windows and generally cleaning the place of trash. While this much work was far from tiring, I still felt mentally drained. Who knew I would be missing that cleaning skill?

Still Hestia lived up to the goddess of Hearth purview she had and helped me organize everything I need to bring here to make things more comfortable, with us buying some more furniture for the house. She reluctantly agreed that Bell deserved to sleep on somewhere better than the couch without even a pillow to his name. A single bulk bed, sheets, pillows and two screens later and we had beginning of the 'boys' room. It was severely lacking in terms of privacy if I were to be honest with myself, but it was much better overall than trying to fit in that cramped couch. Hestia would still see plenty of us since the water and bathroom was on the lower floor attached to her own bedroom. We sill had plans to make a living room on the upper floor, but for that I would need more money.

With the leftover money I brought a couple of change of clothes, hygiene products, a new set of armor, a whetstone and I paid the loan for my sword and armor. It still left me with two thousand vali after several other expenses were paid, like stocking the pantry of the house, but I knew that I would eventually need more so I had to go to work today.

"Thank you for helping me today Hestia. I didn't knew you were working part time, if I did I wouldn't have dragged you into this."

"It's fine", she replied with a smile, "when I told my boss that I was helping my Familia get better settled he was understanding, I will only need to change my day off with someone else. Still you did most of the work inside the church, I only helped you with shopping."

"Which was admittedly the harder part in my opinion, since I couldn't read". While my observe helped distinguish when an item was of low or high quality, the places Hestia showed me were respectable enough that I didn't need to use that feature (much) to know when I was being ripped off. Her own innate ability to discern falsehoods also helped in that regard.

"You should take more pride in your accomplishments, for someone who didn't had anything before you did quite well yourself in such short amount of time".

I shrugged. "I just don't want to be a freeloader, that's all. Looking back I was always fortunate in my life, having it easy and only struggling at anything a few times in my life. I think that if I don't do my best I would dishonor the memories of those I left behind."

I felt something soft grabbing my hands, and I stared as Hestia had them clasped within hers. "You're like Bell, in a sense. I can tell, that you also lost something dear to you, and I wouldn't want to replace it in your heart, but perhaps your new Familia can help heal your emotional wounds."

Can I even get emotional wounds with Gamer's Mind? As usual when that question appeared I made my best to ignore it. Gamer's Mind was too much of an advantage to me to angst over useless things, though I still appreciated the concern Hestia was showing me. "Thank you", I finally replied with a smile, "but I'm fine, really. All taken care by Gamer's Mind."

She simply looked sadly at me, but nodded nonetheless. "Still, as part of the Familia, don't hesitate to ask for help. Both me and Bell would be more than glad to help you with your concerns."

"Thank you, really. I appreciate it", I said before I remembered something. "Well, speaking of concerns I need to take care of something now."

"What is it?" She asked clearly curious after seeing my grimace.

"I have an appointment with my advisor, and while the dungeon didn't managed to kill me until now, she will certain try if I ditch her today."

~~O~~

I looked at building with dread before entering. Once there I asked for Eina who was attending to another adventurer that time and I waited on the lobby for a while. A few minutes later she appeared and looked calm, almost happy before seeing me and schooling her features.

"You really came back", she said in a light tone, "some of my coworkers thought you would run away."

"In my experience running away only makes you die tired", I answered. I was firmly an advocate of the tactical retreat option, but to run away from problems and hope they go away or pretend they're not your business anymore was never something I would condone. Sadly that was the wrong thing to do since Eina made a face.

"Perhaps it would have been better if you learned how to run away", she said softly while we walked to the more private booth. Once we seated, she went straight to the point. "Now please tell me how did you managed to fight against that many monsters in the dungeon, and why you thought it was a good idea to challenge them."

"Now, the way you mention it is like I fought against this large swarm at once, when in reality most of my encounters were against five to twelve enemies at once."

"That's still a dangerous number to fight against", she said before frowning, or at least frowning deeper. "Even if you fought against five enemies at once, you'd still take several hours to kill that many. In between the fights, extracting the magic stones and wandering the dungeon in search for more monsters to kill. Even if you can defeat all your enemies in ten minutes, there's at least another five to ten minutes to extract the magic stones, then at least five more minutes for another group of monsters to appear from the wall. Even assuming that you got", at this she hesitated, not really wanting to use the word 'lucky' or 'fortunate' here, "the events lined up to to match your story, it would still take an inordinately large amount of time for that to happen. I thought it over yesterday with a cooler head and the only method which you could have gotten that many magic stones where if you stole almost all of the adventuring parties on the first four floors, but since we didn't get a single report of thievery yesterday that's extremely unlikely."

"That's a good analysis", I nodded to her, "though it's based on wrong data. I can correct you on some assumptions, but so long as this information isn't leaked. I prefer to keep my secrets close to my chest and this isn't something to be shared with someone outside my Familia."

"You have my word that your secret is safe with me." She said and I stared back at her trying to discern if she was lying. Sadly my observe wasn't good enough yet to help me distinguish when someone could or couldn't be trustworthy.

"It will have to do for now", I said with a sigh. "Let's address the issue of numbers first. To put it simply, I have a skill that allows me to call more monsters to me. With it I can call between three to five batches of enemies in quick succession from the same part of the dungeon and they all come in packs of five to twelve enemies, after that I run to another section of the dungeon and repeat the process once more." She gasped at my admission, though I wasn't certain if it was because I had yet another skill or because I always fought a large number of enemies at once.

"As for my skills I'm actually an experienced monster hunter. Against unarmored enemies with amateurish technique with only their instincts helping them I can usually deliver a single killing blow in between one to five seconds it takes to reach the enemy depending on the positioning. I admit I had more problems against dungeon lizards since I didn't knew exactly where their weak spots were, but once I figured them out it was fairly easy to dispatch them. I could keep up this pace since I'm really good at keeping my pace, if I don't have a strong opponent to occupy myself I can deal with scores of mooks basically forever."

She was staring at me a bit skeptical of my prowess, but the gears on her head were turning. There was only one last part for the puzzle pieces to all fit in. "There's also a last skill that makes sure that after a monster is killed I can extract it's magical stone as easily as picking it up from the ground meaning I don't waste time gutting the monsters to pick it up", I finished with the technical truth.

She stayed silent for a moment, doing the math in her head before she nodded. "If that were the case, then the amount of magic stones you brought would match up with the number you claimed to have killed. Still, that's what, four skills you have not even getting a Falna for three days?"

I shrugged, "I was always a very skilled person", I said earning a groan from Eina and I grinned at her. "Hestia said that I started with some skills already, and that while uncommon it wasn't unheard off. I did gain my last skill, the one that increases the encounter rate inside the dungeon while exploring it. To be honest I was getting bored while wandering the halls of the first floors until everything started to go crazy and the dungeon tried it's hardest to kill me. I admit it was a bit tiring and there were a few close calls, but overall everything went according to plan. What I do might look crazy, but there's a method to my madness." I finished, and she took a deep breath before sighing. "Besides, I already had a Falna beforehand. I now got most of my memories back if you're wondering."

"Oh, that's fortunate Jee-han. Can you tell me then what happened for you to be doing inside the dungeon without armor with a scavenged weapon?"

"No. Sorry, but I prefer to keep the particulars of that story to myself and make it a secret I will take to the grave."

She chuckled, a bit more at ease than before. "Must have been an amusing tale then."

"You have no idea", I muttered to myself before standing up. "Well, I think that's taken care off. I'm off to the dungeon to earn some pocket money since I spent most of what I had earned yesterday on essentials and new equipment."

"I saw your new armor", she said in an appreciating tone. It was a set of armor with a chain vest underneath an unadorned breastplate with matching greaves and breastplates, an open helmet to protect my head but still open enough to not impede my field of vision or hearing. "I must say you're quite dashing in that outfit."

"I admit I'm not used to wearing armor, but you get used to it pretty quickly. I performed a few test swings with it on already and it won't impair my movements much. The extra protection will certainly come in handy, though it was a bit expensive overall. Still, the Hephaestus Familia does good work."

"They certainly do", she said before looking down, "sorry Jee-han for doubting you. I thought you were some kind of clueless rookie that got in over his head and didn't knew how to quit, but clearly you know what you're doing. Still, for my peace of mind please be careful with your skill to attract more monsters, for your sake if nothing else."

She sounded almost desperate when making her plea, and I could see her point. The dungeon was already dangerous enough with the normal encounter rate, to have it increased on demand was simply surreal from her point of view. After all who would put yourself into danger like that willingly? Only the foolish and the desperate, that's who.

"Don't worry, I'm not irresponsible enough to call a large mob just to be unable to kill it later so you don't need to worry about large groups of monsters wandering the dungeon corridors. I also make sure to only engage with as many enemies as I'm comfortable with. I said that running only makes you die tired, but I'm a firm believer of the tactical retreat option so you don't need to worry for me doing something reckless for no reason."

"I admit its a bit unbelievable the tale you told me, but according to my coworkers there are stranger tales floating around. Still, come back to me if you have any question about the dungeon or the enemies within it. At the very least with that skill you don't need to go deeper into the dungeon for a while. Even if you're stronger than a rookie that doesn't mean the lower floors aren't difficult to deal with normally, let alone if you call more monsters to yourself. Please make very sure you can deal with those monsters before doing anything reckless on the lower floors, after some point the enemies not only become stronger, but they also become smarter."

I nodded grimly, smart enemies where the worst enemies even if they were individually weak since they never came alone. Considering taunt can bring in a whole horde of enemies and there's a chance for them to go berserk if I use it too many times or don't time it correctly when they are appearing on the wall.

"Also please don't drag Bell into your expeditions. While you appear to be fine while fighting such great number of enemies, Bell is still inexperienced and weak as a rookie adventurer. While I don't want to speak ill of him behind his back, that's the factual truth."

"I promise I will keep an eye on him and will help him get stronger", I said while turning around, waving at her with my back turned. "See you tomorrow Eina."

"... that's not what I asked him."

~~O~~

As I finished grabbing the last magic stone from the ground I heard sounds of combat, and while normally I ignore it since other adventurers don't like being snooped on, I heard a familiar voice shouting. With a quick run I arrived at where Bell was panting, at least three kobolds dead at his feet.

"Not bad", I told him while inspecting the damage. Aside from being a bit tired, he was in good shape. The kobold corpses had several cuts and gashes around their arms and a large wound around their torso with the exception of the last one which had a clean cut through his throat. "There's some room for improvement but I reserve a more detailed opinion for when we fight at each other side."

"Jee-han hyung", he looked at me with surprise, "I thought you would be at home buying supplies and such, if I knew you would come I would have waited you for a bit."

"I just came in", about two hours ago, "I did spent most of my time back at Hestia's place setting things up though. Good news is that we now have a 'boy's room' of sorts with our own beds. It's a bunk bed, but I think it will feel more comfortable than sleeping on the couch with no pillow. I was thinking on making some money today and to finish furnishing the place later. The entrance of the church is also a lot cleaner now that I got rid of all the broken benches, in fact the main hall looks quite empty now, perfect to make a living room or something else with all that space."

"That sounds nice", Bell said in appreciation, "but I think the goddess would feel lonely in that room by herself."

"She's", I hesitated since I couldn't quite use the words 'big' without sounding like a jackass, "an adult, she will cope. Besides she's right next door to us and we will see plenty of her since the bathroom and the sink are also on the basement."

"Still, I will miss", he started before becoming beet red. Oh, so the episode with her sneaking into the couch to sleep with him isn't a rare occurrence, huh? "There, this is the last stone. Oh! Lucky, a drop item! Today's a good day."

Just as he said that I heard several cracks from the walls, and around five kobolds dropped from the walls, growling at us. I was unconcerned as I held my sword at ready, but Bell looked nervous. "Uh... should we run?" He asked, glancing at me.

"Your call, I'm fine either way to be honest." I said, truth be told I could deal with them in an instant, but Bell need to have the courage and determination to press on or else he won't go far in this business.

He gulped and was ready to give an answer, when he suddenly blinked and got a goofy smile on his face. "I'll do it!" He said charging the enemies. I briefly wondered what he suddenly remembered to have such changed attitude but quickly dismissed it in favor of evaluating his fighting style. Enthusiasm aside, he was quick in his feet and had firm blows, with a good instinct overall, but it was clear that he was a complete amateur fighter. His swings were too wide and he did unnecessary flips and rolls when a mere sidestep would have sufficed, and his aim wasn't the best since he missed a couple of fatal strikes on the enemy that could have ended things faster.

He needs proper combat training before he learns bad habits which he will spend some unnecessary time being hammered out by the dungeon monsters, or else. How to get a proper stance, how to move more smoothly and how to properly target the vitals of the enemies. Granted with the wide array of monsters on the dungeon the last one will be a tall order, but since he will be risking his life on it it's only natural to do his best in learning about the enemy, can't slack off on the essentials after all.

When he finished I clapped my hands, catching his attention. "Not bad, but as I said earlier there's room for improvement. Though if you keep fighting with this much drive you will improve in no time."

"Heh, hehe, thank you Jee-han hyung", he said a bit embarrassed and I grasped him on the shoulder.

"If you're finished for today let's clean up this last group and let's head back to the surface. I have a couple of magic stones to change and I rather not brave the line at Babel."

He nodded in understanding as we both proceeded to carve out the magic stones out of the enemies.

"I wonder how stronger I became today." He said, once more getting a goofy smile on his face.

~~O~~

"EEEHHHH!" I heard Bell yelling from Hestia's room where he was getting his status updated. I had already updated mine once I found an option on my stat sheet for that, earning a pout from the small goddess, and I promised her I would rely on her from now on unless it was an emergency or we did deep expeditions on the dungeon. Not like the current enemies are that much of a challenge unless they come in overwhelming numbers.

Speaking of stats Bell was staring at the piece of paper on his hands like it held the secrets of the universe. "My stats raised by over one hundred sixty points! How's that possible? Goddess, do you know why's that?"

Said goddess in question had her cheeks puffed, a definite sulky look and she was avoiding looking at Bell in the eyes.

"Er... if it where possible", Bell tried and Hestia just blew some more steam, "I'd like to know...", she was starting to make some 'mumumu' sounds which I think was substitute for grinding of teeth for her, "how that happened?"

She went to her closet and pulled a jacket before looking back at Bell, "why don't you celebrate by eating a good meal and having a good time tonight? I'm going out with my coworkers from my job!" She said in a loud tone before stomping away, briefly stopping in front of me and I wisely took a sidestep to let her through.

Once we heard Hestia slamming the outside door I looked back to Bell. "I think I'm missing some context here. What happened?"

Bell sighed. "I don't know, I mentioned to her that I was invited to come to a pub later at night and I had asked her to come with me, but once she updated my status her mood turned upside down and she became upset", he looked a bit desperate as he glanced at my direction, "did I do something to her that I don't know about? What if I really angered her?"

I went to him and patted him on the shoulder in reassurance. "Don't worry too much about it. She might be upset but I doubt it's something serious, just let her cool down a bit on her own. If you're still worried you can always ask for forgiveness to her later, and since she will know you will mean it she will eventually forgive you if you really did something to her."

He nodded, a bit more confident in himself. "If that's the case, would you like to accompany me? I wanted all of us to go but with the goddess gone..."

"Sure", I told him, "but I'm paying. It's tradition from where I come from for someone older to shoulder some responsibilities and paying for the bill of a younger colleague is one of them."

"I-I can't!" He said in surprise, "I can't possibly abuse of your generosity like that Jee-han hyung!"

I just rolled my eyes. "You're only going to abuse my generosity if you make an habit out of it or expect it to be the norm. There will be plenty of times for you to pay me back. As a new adventurer you should be saving up money for better equipment and supplies in order to reach deeper floors on the dungeon, right? Either that or use the saved money to take Hestia to dinner, I'm sure she will appreciate the gesture."

Bell blushed at the mention, clearly equating dinner with Hestia to date, which wasn't that far off to be honest. I'm sure Hestia will thank me later if I manage to have Bell notice her as a woman, or at least to notice her as an available woman.

Heh, so much for being the namesake of one of the three virgin goddess of the greek mythology.

Once we were ready we departed the church and went to the pub he talked about. It was a stone building with plenty of wooden details, and it was all around homely if I had to say so. "What's it's called?" I asked Bell once we entered.

"Welcome to the Hostess of Fertility", said an elf in a maid outfit, surprising us. Her tone of voice was serious in a no-nonsense manner, and had sharp eyes that would be considered intimidating to almost anyone. "Do you want a table or to sit on the counter?"

"The counter should do", I said while we three walked to the counter.

"Someone will come to get your order." Said the elf woman. "Do you wish to drink something? I recommend the house's fruit liquor."

Bell ordered a lemon juice while I ordered some of the fruit liquor she recommended. It was quite good actually, with a strong kick but not to the point to make it difficult to drink. We also ordered something to eat and it came in big portions, both in quantity and price. "Ah Bell, you came!"

We turned around and saw a girl smiling at Bell, one of the staff members of the pub. She had light gray hair and eyes and a pale complexion that was free of blemishes, all in all she was quite pretty. "Thank you for coming Bell. I hope you have a good time here, finding this place to be nearly as special to yourself as it is to me."

"That's nice", Bell said with a somewhat strained smile, after all he almost had a heart attack when he saw the prices of the place. I wouldn't blame him, with the meal we're eating right now we could have bough a new weapon and those things are quite expensive. For someone that's used to a tight budget for food it must have been a surprise to him. He wanted to split the difference but I waved him off, after all I had earned the money on the dungeon just for this kind of situation.

She chuckled lightly. "Looks like I will be paid quite well today too."

"How fortunate", Bell said dryly while munching on his food.

"Isn't interesting that so many different people come to this place? So many people, so many stories, my heart start pounding when I think about that. You could say that my hobby is to meet with new people." She said with a smile at the boy, while she blatantly ignores me. So much for 'meeting new people'.

"Nyah~! The customers with a reservation arrived!" Said another maid, an honest to Gaia catgirl. I'm still not used to seeing so many non-humans walking around since they stayed in their own dimensions for the most part back at home. Taking a glance at the new arrival I saw that it was a quite eclectic bunch and I used my observe on them to see who they where. All had an average level around five with high stats depending on their specialties. They also had a bunch of development abilities at a reasonable rank and I could see their magic and skills, but sadly I couldn't get information out of them.

"So Bell, how are you enjoying the night?" I asked the boy and he seemed frozen in place. "Bell?"

His face was beet red and his gaze was firmly following a certain girl. I followed his gaze and saw that he was starting at a blonde teenager I previously identified as Aiz Wallenstein. A powerful adventurer, perhaps the strongest of the group depending on how she improved on her previous levels. Bell tracked her movements until she sat down and someone else got in front of her.

Hmm... looks like Hestia have a rival and she's starting at a disadvantage. Guess she will have her work cut out for her.

We ate and drank our fill making small conversation. Bell told me that he previously lived with his grandfather but he died, and he decided to come to Orario to try his luck, but no Familia allowed him to enter until he found Hestia on the street and she gave her blessing to him. They have been together for about two weeks now. I listened to him and talked a bit about my adventures, specially when I first learned about the Abyss and when I went to help Sung-Ah and her father from those in the Abyss that wanted to extract her soul, which was a cover up for a powerful group to try and recruit her father into their organization forcibly.

As the night died down I finished my drink and was just waiting for Bell to stop staring at Aiz for us to go home when the werewolf of Loki Familia, Bete, started talking.

"Hey Aiz, how about we tell the others about that story?"

"That story?" Aiz said in a cool tone which was apparently her default tone of voice.

"Remember when we let some minotaurs escape from the seventeen floor, and you took the last one on the fifth floor, and you remember the tomato dork in there?"

Bell stiffened, surprised by what he was hearing. Already a picture was forming in my head and it wasn't pretty.

"A complete wimp running around at the fifth floor before he was ambushed by the minotaur, then he started running around screaming for his life until Aiz killed the monster and showered him with that stinky blood, looking like a tomato. Then he ran away screaming from Aiz even though she saved him! Isn't that pathetic?"

Bell was shaking on his seat, gritting his teeth as he listened to the story. Yeah no, I think I got enough of this. "Check please!"

I ignored the group taunts while I pulled the exact amount of money from my inventory, dropping it at the table. When I realized however Bell had stood up and started running away. "Tsk, Bell wait up!"

I followed him closely behind but I couldn't really bridge the gap. He was faster than me and I believe he had more stamina, but I still managed to see him entering Babel. He doesn't plan to enter the dungeon at this hour, does he?

I sprinted at the building and descended the stairs until I heard the sounds of yelling from someone coming in front of me. Once more I sprinted at the source of the sound until I found Bell cleaving at the kobolds and goblins like a man possessed.

"BELL!" I yelled to him but he ignored me, until I approached him and he turned around with a slash at my face forcing me to block the blade barehanded, drawing a tickle of blood for a few instants before it healed.

"Jee-han hyung?" He said, his head cleaning a bit before he realized what he did. "Oh no, I'm so sorry!"

"No harm done", I dismissed his concerns, "looks like you need to kill something. We can talk more later and there is something I want to show you anyway." I said while leading to the shortest path to the lower floors. He just stood there for a few moments before nodding and following me.

We ignored most monsters, dispatching them quickly until we reached the fourth floor. "Ever wondered how come I brought so much money back to your Familia", I asked him with my back turned. "I'm going to show you what I have been doing all this time."

I took a deep breath before starting. "Come on! I'm here you weakling! You can't even kill a single man, do you expect us to fear you? You're nothing but a cow I'm going to milk for all it's resources leaving hanging dry a broken piece of shit!"

Sure enough I started hearing the cracks on the wall. One, two, three, ten, twenty. Hmm... looks like the dungeon started to pick up the pace, or is it because there is someone else with he this time? "They're coming, prepare yourself." I said and prepared my sword, leaving the armor away in solidarity to my bullheaded junior.

With Bell motivated strikes and my careful assault and defense it was a slaughter, feeling it easier than going at them by myself. As I set Bell to extract the magic stones from the enemies he killed solo I started lecturing him. "I can't work on your stances right now but on thing I noticed is how you move while dodging the attacks of your opponents. While you're fast, even faster than me actually, true speed comes from economy of movements. I don't know if you noticed it earlier, but when we fought we were both dodging our enemy attacks however it was me that managed to quickly go from one enemy to another."

As he finished carving the monsters and handling me the magic stones I took my sword and set into a stance. "Let me show you a few tricks then you can try them on the enemies I will call."

And so it went our night, with me giving pointers to Bell both on offense and defense while we both killed our fill of monsters, taking the time we were gutting the corpses to catch our breath. After some time I decided to stop for a few moments as Bell was panting from exertion. "So, now that you calmed down a little can you tell me what happened?"

He stayed silent for a few moments, avoiding his gaze from me and I patiently waited for him to start.

"Normally I don't go to the fifth floor", started Bell, "but I went to it anyway. The reason for why I went there is", he paused, "damn, you will think I'm a moron."

"Not anymore than coming to the dungeon and try to commit suicide by monster", I told him making him wince, "but since I didn't bring that up before I'm not going to hold against you whatever reason you had to go to the fifth floor."

"Well, I went to the fifth floor for... I want to, uhh, I wanted to have an encounter on the dungeon."

I blinked at his choice of words, not really getting what he was saying. "Come again?"

"My grandfather told me stories about heroes meeting girls during adventures, and making an harem was necessary for a hero and that making an harem was the dream of every man." He continued with a blush, "I... kind of agreed with him and was brought up dreaming of having encounters with cute girls, and once I got my Falna I tried my hardest to get as far as I could in order to save a cute adventurer on the dungeon like a hero in the stories."

I stared at him for a few moments before walking towards him with a serene expression. I knelt at his side before slapping the back of his head.

"Ouch!"

"Didn't it occur to you that kind of stuff only have a chance to be successful if you're strong. Last I checked you're still a rookie who got your Falna just two weeks ago, it would make sense if you stayed on the upper floors and found another adventurer that got over her head when fighting a big group of enemies, but on the fifth floor? Isn't that where the enemies get noticeably stronger? If this hypothetical adventurer need saving, I'm certain that if you interfered you would also need saving, and most likely there would be two corpses instead of one to bring back to their respective heads of the Familia."

He flinched at my words, but he had to hear them. I let him mull over it for a few moments before I put my hand on his shoulder. "But I heard far worse reasons for someone to risk their lives, and while your reasons might have been a bit selfish at least it didn't hurt anyone else, other than possibly endangering yourself of course. Still I think what happened back then in the pub, but why don't you tell me?"

He slowly nodded. "When I was saved by Aiz, I got so happy. I had practically, I mean", he started tuning red and stuttered a longish string of words that I couldn't quite catch but I'm sure weren't that important, "but then when I heard that werewolf talking, it really hit home how I was pathetic. How I wanted to be acclaimed as a hero, to gain the spoils while being weak and without doing anything to deserve that. I realized that the way I am right now I would never have Aiz look at me."

As suspected. While I have half a mind to punch that werewolf for being a dick on general principle, the first think I will do once I meet him is to thank him for helping get my junior thoughts set straight. "And you wanted to get as stronger as possible, as fast as possible, right? That's why you came to the dungeon."

Bell nodded, and I stood up. "Well, if you have rested enough we have a long night ahead of us. I gain a lot of points to my stats by fighting plenty of enemies so you should do fine if you do the same. Didn't I told you before? With my guidance you will be shoulders to shoulders with the best in no time flat, or do you doubt me?"

Bell looked up at me, and had a determined look on his face. "No! I want to, I must do this! Please help me get stronger!"

I nodded, and held my hand for him to stand up. It's a pity that I can't create parties like before, it would have helped Bell in getting stronger faster, but since basically everyone with a Falna have a gamer lite set up going for them it might not have helped much in the end. "Alright then Bell", I said as I turned to face the dungeon, "let's do this then."

"Hey dungeon, are you done resting? Because we're going to beat you up so through you will cry tears of impotent rage. Oh, are you doing that already? What a pansy!"

"OOOOOOOOHHHH!" I cried with my fist in the air, prompting Bell to follow me. "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHH!"

With a shrug Bell did the same. "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHH!"

As several more cracks appeared on the wall we stood against each other back to back, ready to get stronger for our own reasons. Bell in order to one day stand at the side of the woman he loved, and for me...

Maybe I wanted a new chance to make a difference. To become strong enough to protect myself and my own, to make my name be heard through the legends, to have fun. Whatever the reasons, I simply didn't wanted to waste this second chance I got.

Once more, thank you Gaia.

~~O~~

We arrived back at the church at dawn, with Hestia dozing off while waiting for us. As she saw us coming back she sprinted to greet me and Bell, who was sleeping on my back as I carried him. He had a couple of injuries but nothing too serious since I had his back during the night, while I was as always in pristine condition aside from my clothes being torn in certain places.

"Is he alright?" Hestia whispered once she noticed he was sleeping.

"Tired, but not too hurt. I prefer if he gets some medicine later but it can wait until he had a good night's sleep."

Hestia sighed in relief. "I'm glad. Thank you Jee-han for protecting Bell."

I smiled at the small goddess, "you're welcome."

"I want... to become... stronger..." Bell muttered on his sleep, earning a small smile from Hestia and a chuckle from me.

Now that he had the right mentality he certainly will become stronger.


	4. Monsterphilia 1

Bell was currently asleep on his bed while both me and Hestia talked. She had grabbed a coffee from a store earlier which helped alleviate the effects of Tired status effect.

"Hmm", she said while staring at me intently in the eyes, her presence somehow making her bigger than she really was, and for the first time I felt more than knew that she was a goddess. "What you did yesterday was dangerous. I can sort of forgive Bell from doing something so reckless due to his youth, but I don't think you can have that excuse."

"Bell was distraught yesterday", I replied in an even tone, "and dashed straight to the dungeon to kill anything in his path. In fact he was so unbalanced that when I approached him from behind he tried to attack me. I don't have the wounds to prove my claims, but if I didn't block his attack and had Gamer's Body I would have a very nasty scar on my face, if I survived the encounter at all."

Hestia gasped in shock, but I waved her off. "No harm done, my skill Gamer's Body prevents me from taking this kind of damage. So long as I have enough health I will always work at one hundred percent efficiency and injuries last only for a few instant giving the impression that I'm invulnerable. We can work on Bell's reaction later since he needs to be always in control, but if he didn't had those kind of reflexes he would have been dead several times over in that dungeon, so I won't hold it against him."

She sighed in relief before nodding, opening her mouth for a moment before starting to fidget with the coffee cup in her hands. "Bell is going to be strong", she whispered and I agreed with her, with his new mindset he can definitely reach new heights.

"As a member of your Familia it's my duty to help my fellow adventurer", I said to the small goddess, "besides even if I lost most of my power I'm not that bad if I am honest with myself. I don't plan to be left behind by him even if he had a head start, and as senior fighter, mage and adventurer, it would be a shame if I let him leave me in the dust. Even if I knew people that advanced faster than me under certain conditions I was always good at punching way above my weight class."

She nodded before standing up, "I will need to go to my job soon, can you take care of Bell for me while I'm out?"

"Don't worry, I will hold fort." I said with a grin. "I will make sure that Bell doesn't try to do something hare brained when he wakes up."

"Thank you Jee-han, you are a real help to us. I wish I could do something for you as a show of gratitude."

I just waved her off, "no need for that. If you insist I can think of something later but don't beat yourself over it. Have a good day Hestia."

"You too Jee-Han. Take care."

As she went out I finished Hestia's cup myself before going to the boy's room and sitting on the ground, making myself comfortable before starting meditating. While it's no substitute for actual sleep it can help prevent the Tired status from reaching Exhausted status before Bell wakes up. Besides, there's something else I wanted to try anyway...

~~O~~

A few hours later Bell stretched on the bed, yawning cutely like some kind of small, fluffy animal. If I were a girl I would squeal over how cute he looked, but alas even if he looked like the perfect younger brother right now it was my duty as an older sibling figure, or was it parental figure with my age, that were expected of me.

"Good morning sleeping beauty", I said while cracking one eye open, "I was getting worried I'd need to wake you up with a kiss."

"WOAHHH- Ouch!" He said while waking up with a start, hitting his head on the bed above him. "Where, were am I?"

"Back at Hestia's Familia headquarters", I told him while standing up, "you collapsed yesterday in the middle of the dungeon, and I had to drag you out of there by myself, even having to kill a couple of monsters with you on my back. Please be more considerate next time you decide to take a nap."

"Oh... oh! Sorry about that mister Jee-han!" Did he drop the hyung or did the translation suit changed once more? I hope it stops flip flopping and settles down already. "But I was so exhausted after fighting with all those enemies, and it was already so late..."

I shrugged before motioning him to come over, "let's go to the bathhouse and clean ourselves up. I would also suggest for you to go back to the pub and apologize to that girl Syr since she was talking with you before you ran off."

"Okay... oh no, the bill! I ran off before I paid the bill!"

Once more I slapped him on the back of his head earning a soft 'ouch' from him, "did you forget that I was supposed to pay for it? I took care of the bill no problem. Now take a change of clothes since we will take a bath and then finish furbishing our 'room' after we drop yesterday loot."

"Ah... I almost forgot that we took the time to pick them up."

"A wise adventurer once said: pillage, then burn. Let's get going."

Hestia wouldn't come back until late evening so we had plenty of time to bring clean ourselves up, cash our earnings from yesterday and buy a closet for our 'room'. Maybe another table, a couple of chairs and perhaps even another couch for the 'living room'. At least some mattress to put on the remaining church chairs, or perhaps hiring someone to come and clean up the broken windows of the first floor?

The first stop was at the Hostess of Fertility however, where Bell was bowing to Syr. "I'm sorry for leaving so rudely yesterday", he said with a deep bow. Quite a familiar sight for a mostly western looking place. "I was upset yesterday but it doesn't excuse my behavior, after the kindness you displayed me yesterday by giving me your lunch."

He wisely left out the 'and scammed me into paying for expensive food with that one act of kindness', but I can't fault her for wanting to attract more clients to her workplace.

"It's alright Bell, no harm done. Though if you didn't had paid the bill mama would be rather upset with you."

Said mama was a tall, muscular woman with a square jaw and hair tied in a ponytail cleaning up behind the counter, which she just grinned and cracked her knuckles before going back to her task at hand. Bell shuddered at the sight. Frankly I would too if I didn't learned to school my reactions with ludicrous application of Gamer's Mind, now that was a hard trick to learn.

"We will come back again", I told the girl who smiled at me, "this felt like a lovely place, after all. Good atmosphere, good food, good drink, definitely will come back later. The beautiful sight wasn't nearly as bad either", I said with a teasing grin to the girl.

Syr turned beet red at my words but before she could answer another one of the staff, the blonde elf, interrupted our byplay. "Syr, don't you have something to do at the kitchen?" She nodded, before running off but not without taking a glance towards Bell. The elf, Lyon Ryuu level four (seriously, is this forgotten realms with the infamous twenty level fighter as a tavern owner?) stared at me with cold, judgmental eyes. "Please don't toy with the hearts of a maiden sir Jee-han."

I chukled before nodding. "Sorry, it was just light teasing. I wouldn't dream of upsetting a girl like that. Besides", I said with a shrug, "I don't have many ties with flirting and romance anyway."

"I see", she said while keeping those same eyes towards me, "so long as you don't try anything and keep your hands to yourself then there's no problem."

Heh, it kinds of reminds me of Shi-Yun in a sense, as in 'the immediate feeling of hostility between us'. Why my luck with women is so bad, if it isn't one thing then it's another. Hiding my internal grievances I gave her a mock salute. "Aya aye ma'am!"

Lyon narrowed her eyes a minute amount and I knew I had overstayed my welcome, but it won't do to appear like I had been kicked out from the place, there are appearances to maintain. "If you're done Bell let's get going", I said before performing a small bow, "keep up with the good work."

Bell also bowed, and we both were out of the pub.

Now that business is taken care off we can get back to more important matters, like post-battle shopping!

~~O~~

In my honest opinion the shopping trip was a success. We managed to buy all the essentials for making a home and to expand our 'room' while buying a few new set of clothing since those things will go down fast. While last night we didn't take too much damage total, each scrap added to the state of disrepair of our garments. If things continue at this pace we will go through our wardrobe in a flash.

"I think there's one more place we can go mister Jee-han", said Bell while leading us to another street.

In a smallish store a man was manning the counter, and if I were to say looked like a pretty boy to me. "Welcome to Miach's Familia apothecary... oh, it's you young Bell. How are you and Hestia doing?"

"I'm doing fine lord Miach", he said with a small bow, "I came here to introduce you the newest member of Hestia Familia, Han Jee-han."

I did a polite bow to the god and he responded with a nod, "it's a pleasure to meet with you Han Jee-han."

"The pleasure is all mine", I said with a smile, "you can call me Jee-han if you want lord Miach. Sorry for being blunt, but what exactly do you sell here? I'm new in town so I don't know much about things here."

"Well, as you ca see this is an apothecary, where we sell general medicines, potions and some perfumes and shampoos on the side."

My eyes widened at that. "Really, do you sell magic potions? Can I see some of them?"

"Of course, here", he said pulling a potion from the shelf, "consider it a gift from a friend", he said kindly as I took a look at the potion.

"Observe", I muttered and was surprised at what I saw.

Health Potion  
Recovers 20% of health. Tastes like citric fruit.

"Uh... mister Jee-han?"

"Young Jee-han?"

"Hm?" I said while still staring at the potion in my hand.

"You're looking scary", said Bell who took a step back as I turned to look at him.

"I don't think the human mouth can turn that shape." Said Miach from behind the counter, looking slightly alarmed.

"It's nothing", I said while trying to contain my grin and failing miserably. Oh, the hell with it!

"Huhuhuhuh, hahahaha, HAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Yes, yes, YES! With those potions in hand I can go into the dungeon, perhaps even deeper and stay for far longer than normal. Specially since they each restores a percentage of my health so even if I jack up my health parameter as high as I can I would still only take five potions to be back to full. Now, if only I can get a method to stop sleeping entirely, or even if I developed a skill that gave me bonus to potion use that would be the best.

"Lord Miach, would you perhaps have... eh?" I looked around and saw Bell cowering at the corner of the counter, while Miach looked positively pale as he stared at me.

Through a special action the skill Intimidate was created!

Intimidate  
A skill to inspire dread and fear on the target. Skill effectiveness increase with higher user level and higher ? rank.  
Moderate chance to cause the status effect shaken on targets.  
Small chance to cause the status effect frightened on targets.

Well, that's nice, but what did I do?

~~O~~

In the end I bought four more health potions for later use, combined with the gift I had making it an even five and one full health restoration. With this I could venture deeper into the dungeons and have a better chance to return safely, and in the future I would pick up the mana potions he sells to replenish my mana and keep going with my magic.

But now I was more focused on other matters.

"Ah!... hmmm... yes, there!"

Back at home I had a few methods to get stronger 'faster'. The first one was to fight on the instant dungeons against strong enemies which I was a hard counter to, like on the Great Labyrinth on the first floors which were geared against melee fighters and a mage like me completely curbstomped the opposition.

"Ha... ha... ugh!"

The second one was to go on a time dilatation dungeons and start grinding my skills, activating as many of them as possible with my mana regen to constantly gain an influx of experience and using the extended time effect to return on the normal world with my skills at high level, sometimes even prestiging them into more advanced skills.

"Please... don't stop..."

The third one was to cheat considerably and...

"BELL, DON'T DO IT! YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO LOOK AT ANYONE ELSE BUT ME!"

I looked back and saw that Hestia was short of breath as she had quickly ran towards her room on the basement, looking positively distraught for a few seconds before her look changed that of confusion. Bell raised his head over the pillow he had his head pressed into, noticing the small goddess.

"Goddess, you're back already. Welcome home." Said Bell with a kind tone before looking meaningfully to me and I continued pressing my feet against his back, earning another moan of pleasure from the young boy.

"... what are you two doing right now?" She asked, utterly confused on the sight she had ran into.

"Well", I started, "I used to have a lot of skills back at home, and one of those that I saw a lot of use was Massage, which reduced body fatigue and even allowed me to go days without sleep after a couple of minutes massaging my body. I'm trying to regain that skill since without sleep I have eight more hours to do stuff without feeling tired or exhausted."

She looked between Bell and me for a few moments before muttering a low 'oh', her head turning a beet red. It was then that it hit me that maybe Bell mutterings could sound a bit strange without proper context. "Sorry for using your bed Hestia, but ours isn't really appropriate for it."

"It's fine, really. If it is something that can help Bell I don't mind, though I never heard of massage being mentioned in the context of skills."

"Well, for me almost everything can be a skill and they all have some beneficial effect even if some of them were underwhelming, like my infamous Dish Washing skill that allowed me to clean plates and other utensils quickly. By the way, do you want to go next? Bell is mostly done now."

"He's really, really good", said Bell from his pillow, "it's like I'm in heaven..."

"Just wait until I get my skill", I told him, "though it might take a while. I'm not sure the proper trigger to get the skill back, only what it must be done to gain it. That means I will have to do this pretty much everyday until it pops up."

"I'm absolutely fine with it." He said before yelping as I twisted a knot on his back.

Hestia chuckled before sitting at the edge of the bed. "I will be looking forward to it. Still, after you two are done let's update your status, and you should get some rest Jee-han, don't think I didn't notice you yawning before."

As if to hammer the point home I yawned and nodded to her. "Will do. I wonder how stronger we got during last night fighting. I know we got plenty of money at least."

"I'm sure you two got plenty strong for a single day of work."

~~O~~

Hestia was looking seriously to both of us on the chairs that I brought earlier.

"I will be frank with you two. Your growth rate is rather incredible", said the little goddess, "Bell had a growth of a bit over four hundred points overall just yesterday, while Jee-han had a growth rate of one hundred seventy points overall. While not nearly as much as Bell, it was still an impressive amount all things considered, and I have a hunch that neither of your growth will slow down in the noticeable future."

"That must be all the fighting we're doing." I gave my two cents. "While the enemies of the fourth floor are rather weak all things considered, the sheer numbers and constant fighting we had going on forces us to keep our mind sharp and tensed for battle. Since you told me an adventurer improves the more effort and danger he faces, that must be the reason of our growth", I then turned to Bell, "though for you to go up so fast is rather surprising. Is it normal for adventurers?"

"No", said Hestia to both of us, "you could say that Bell has hit a growth spurt of sorts. I believe that Bell have an incredible talent, one I would want to nurture. You too Jee-han, you said you lost most of your abilities when you came to this world, but you are on your way to recovery if your growth rate continues like this."

I just shrugged. "I cheated back at home. By all right I shouldn't have reached the heights of power I did, but then again as the old saying goes 'if you're not cheating you're not trying'".

"That's... an odd thing to say mister Jee-han", said Bell to my side, "I never thought you would say something like that."

"Well, I say cheating but I did the actual training and paid the effort in sweat, blood and tears. I just made sure that I did all of that in a time frame that was far too quick compared with other people without my advantages, even if technically speaking my methods of growth weren't exactly unique to me. Aside from my The Gamer power, of course. You could kind of count it as cheating since few people would have access to nearly as many methods I had at disposition, and they all synergise really well." Bell was nodding, understanding my point, "sadly all those options were taken away from me as I landed on this world and I will have to do it the old fashioned way like a plebeian", I said with a wink to Bell, earning a chuckle from him.

"Still, I want to support you, both of you, as my children."

We both nodded, "you already did so much for me goddess, I'm just glad that I can become a fine adventurer and make you proud, and perhaps reach my dreams", he said the last with a small blush on his face.

Hestia right eye twitched a minute amount before she sighed, looking back at Bell. "Don't worry Bell, I'm sure that you can become a fine hero in the future. I believe in you."

"Thank you goddess", he said with a smile at her, and they both stared longingly at each other.

I felt like a third wheel and it was starting to feel a bit awkward but I made sure not to make a sound or move in order to not ruin the moment. Sometime later they both broke off their stares with a light blush, as if remembering that I was still in the room.

"That being said", Hestia continued, "I will be away for a few days since I was invited to the gathering of gods during Monsterphilia and I have some business to attend elsewhere too, so during that time I will be unavailable to update your status. With that in mind please don't risk yourself much since you won't be able to get stronger during that time."

Bell nodded in acceptance while I chuckled. "At least I will have some time to catch up with Bell during that time."

Hestia pouted at the reminder. "It's almost cheating how you can update your status even without the aid of a god."

"It's the last gift of the Will of the Planet to her wayward son", I answered with a sad smile, "she left me with the means to survive with a power similar to what I was used to. You could say that as a Natural Ability User I was Gaia's child, and it shows with the emblem of my Falna", which was basically a map of Earth showing all it's continents in an stylized manner. The only proof and reminder of where I came from. "She was a distant parent at best, but she saved my life and gifted me with a last Blessing. I'm really glad for that."

She also had a sad smile of her own. "I would have loved to have given you my blessing naturally Jee-han, and have you as my own child instead of an adopted one."

"Nah", I said to the with a grin, "I was a little shit back then, I can admit that much. Too absorbed on my own hobbies, just coasting along and doing the minimum necessary to get by and causing untold grief to my parents. You could say I got where I am today only because of my power, if I didn't had it at the time I would certainly be a failure as a person."

"That's a bit harsh Jee-han", said Bell and Hestia nodded.

"I had a lot of time to ponder about my past, about my mistakes and my accomplishments and I realized my life actually started when I got The Gamer, until then I was blind to the reality of the world, how much danger my childhood friend faced, the kind of life some people lived both with the supernatural and without it, the hidden struggles that my parents faced in order to give me a happy life. I came to the conclusion that I had to make up for all that time I wasted so I did just that." I paused for a moment. "That and I had a lot of fun getting stronger and facing danger. You might think me a little weird for thinking like that."

"I've heard weirder", came Hestia's reply, while Bell was pensive for a few moments.

"My grandfather often told me that a man, an adventurer should go on adventures and he was always excited while telling those stories. I think that having fun on an adventure isn't exactly wrong."

I didn't said anything about that, just glad that they both were understanding of my quirks.

"So Hestia, I think I owe you a massage. Now lay down on your back and I will get started."

"Huhu, I'm looking forward to it Jee-han."

"Hmm, goddess, would be alright if I sleep on the couch today?" Bell asked and we turned to him. "I mean, not like I don't appreciate having my own bed now, but since you are going away for a few days I wanted to at least stay in your presence?" He said a bit shyly, "If it's not a bother?"

"Oh Bell, of course you can sleep here", she said before she got a cat life grin on her, "if you want we can share our body heat before I depart to leave you with something of mine~"

Bell froze at her teasing, becoming red as a tomato before I lightly flicked the nose of Hestia.

"Oie!"

"No corrupting the young, impressionable, naive boy."

~~O~~

Status

Power I 90 - H 122  
Endurance I 75 - H 111  
Agility I 88 - H 117  
Dexterity H 102 - H 135  
Magic I 59 - I 98

V$: 81500

~~O~~

"Well, I'm off", said Hestia as she was wearing one of her dresses, "don't do anything I wouldn't."

"Will do." I answered while Bell bowed at her, sending her off. She took a few paces away, before stopping.

"Hey Jee-han. I have a question, can you answer me?"

"Sure, what is it?"

"Is there something you want or need since arriving here at Orario?" She asked to me in a innocently curious tone.

I pondered the question for a few moments, but I already had the answer in my head. "There's nothing I really want right now that isn't forever out of my reach", I said with a sad smile, "and what I need I can get myself with enough time and effort. If my forays on the dungeon continue being this profitable, I should be able on getting myself started on a proper equipment soon. In fact, I already started gathering special ingredients for my future equipment."

"Truly?" Asked Hestia a bit surprised at my initiative before shaking her head, "when I look at your status it is easy to forget that you are an experienced warrior Jee-han, though it's surprising that you are so well prepared."

"It will take some time to amount to anything", I admitted, "but in some ways I'm fortunate since coming to Orario gave me an unique opportunity."

"Still, is there nothing that you want that's within my power to give you?"

I paused for a moment, thinking about it. A couple of ideas came to mind, but mostly I wanted to test a few things first before committing to anything. I didn't questioned why she was asking those things, mostly because when I arrived I basically ended her immediate money problems, started cleaning up her house and are helping her first child to learn the ropes of the job (even if technically I'm also new to being a professional adventurer on Orario). She didn't looked like a person who enjoyed living at the expense of others, and had a good sense of responsibility if her still working on her job was any indication.

"There might be a couple of things, but it can wait until you finish your business. I'm still getting settled on Orario so if I find anything I will let you know", I said honestly but at seeing the disappointed look on Hestia something came to mind. "Hmm, could you try and find me something that can play music?"

"Music?" She asked, tilting her head.

"Yeah, see if you can find somewhere that sells either a device or magical item that can play multiple types of music on demand. Can you do that for me?"

"I will certainly try", she said with a smile, "as for you Bell please behave and don't do anything reckless since I won't be able to update your status for a little while. Also, try to look forward to my return, you might be surprised~"

"Of course goddess", he said with a smile, "have a nice trip."

Turning, she left us and we were soon alone in front of the Familia headquarters.

"Well, let's get to work. I think we can brave the fifth floor today, perhaps even reach the sixth floor depending on how things go. We might need to confirm with Eina first though."

"But isn't the fifth floor too hard for you right now mister Jee-han? Even with your experience the monsters of the fifth floor can be quite vicious."

I just gave Bell a look.

"Oh." He said before blushing, "right, sorry. What I meant is, do you think you're ready?"

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained is an old saying from my world. I don't plan on taunting the dungeon on my first time at the fifth floor, but instead go at the normal pace and rate of encounter until I can get a proper feel of the floor. If I get confident enough that I can handle it we can start mobbing the place, otherwise we will keep it slow."

"Alright, let's get going then."

~~O~~

The fifth floor there were more Dungeon Lizards running around, which I felt were slightly stronger and faster than the ones I faced until now, and we found two new more creatures. The Frog Shooter and the War Shadow, while the former was a bit of a pushover endurance wise it had reach on him, and the War Shadow was quite difficult to deal with since it posses sharp claws, have a good reach with its limbs and isn't nearly as dumb as the other enemies, cautiously moving around us and trying to surround us for a good shot from one of it's kin.

It was of course all pointless in the end since they were complete amateurs in fighting, while they had good instincts and reflexes, I dare say high enough that a normal person would be hard pressed against a single one of them, let alone a score of them, they acted closer to video game monsters with predictable patterns. All monsters of that type fought more or less the same, even more so for those that recently came from the walls and don't have any worldly experience in dealing with adventurers.

With that in mind it was easy to memorize their most common attack patterns and after accounting for a small 'noise' of out of pattern attacks, it was almost child's play to kill them all. It took more than one strike to finish them off, but with Bell covering my back I had nothing to fear.

"Raw efficiency can slide in a pinch when you are facing a new enemy, but make sure to observe the enemy attacks and general movements. A rise in the shoulder here, a twist on the hip there, a particular foot they put forward first, all of those are tells the enemy shows you which you can exploit. For now we are dealing with dumb creatures, but it's not too early to start fighting more efficient and trying to minimizing your own tells."

"Understood mister Jee-han!"

In short order we managed to kill a fair amount of enemies with almost no damage to us, and we decided that it was a good opportunity to try our hands at the taunt once more. I still had the potions Miach gave me so if worst came to worst I can stabilize Bell, grab him and make a run for it.

"Alright Bell, let's do this!" I said and we both nodded at the same time.

"Start trying you weakling cave! Can't you even challenge a pair of newbies? You're a failure as a dungeon!"

Just like clockwork the walls started to crack, and from there the telltale thick substance fell on the ground showing the twelve War Shadows, nearly double the amount of enemies we were dealing until now. Since they would take some time to fully get to their normal height I decided to test my newest skill, and I started growling at the enemies.

I didn't even knew I could do that!

Some of the enemies froze after that display and took a step back, and both me and Bell took that opportunity to hack at the War Shadows as they were stunned, and those that still attacked did so with a more sluggish and hesitant method. Only one or two still retaining the usual combat vigor. Suffice to say it was a slaughter.

Good, good, my first combat debuff and it doesn't cost mana!

"Mister Jee-han, you're doing that thing again." Bell said alarmed and I calmed down a bit. No sense in upsetting my companion after all.

"Let's clean up this floor, we have to make a living after all."

Thus the rest of the day passed in a haze of slaughter with both of us killing our fill of enemies like men possessed, and soon I managed to catch up a little with Bell, at least until he gets his next status update. After about eight hours of work we went to Babel and took a shower, ate some dinner before exchanging our money and going back home.

I gave Bell the option to continue training at home more of his skills. While fighting a human is different from fighting a monsters due to several factors, it is still a good way to start improving on his combat ability.

When we sparred for the day I learned that Bell, while crude in his offense and defense, had very good instincts. The kind of thing that you were born with and combined with his natural high speed it made it harder for me to properly hone those instincts of his into a fine edge. Harder but not impossible, as the few bruises he got while we fought attested. Though to be fair if I didn't had Gamer's Body I would had my own share of injuries too.

Afterwards I showed him a few forms for him to practice while I sat down and started meditating on my mana.

It was high enough time for me to start working towards my real specialty, and for that I need to relearn the bread and butter of magic.

Energy Bolt.

If that proved possible, it would open certain possibilities to allow me to keep up with Bell ridiculous advancement in the future.

Kekekekeke.

I ignored Bell suddenly shuddering on the other side of the church grounds and I started to work.

Unlimited Cosmic Power doesn't come easy, after all.

~~O~~

As I sat down to meditate I let all worldly distractions fade away, focusing on the feeling I had while using my magical Skill Observe, how each use slowly drained my mana and how those feelings manifested on me. It was more subtle than using magic back at home, though it was possible to discern them.

Fortunately I was used to reaching a deep state of concentration while meditating and I brought the feeling to the forefront of my mind.

A light pinch in my head, as if something was being grabbed behind my eyes just as I use the magical skill. A slight draining sensation as if I had performed some physical effort.

Something was held firmly within me. What was supposed to have the fluidity of water instead feels like a thick tar, difficult to move to the direction I want. Slowly, painfully slowly, I made this tar move, and as it does so it gains more traction and become easier to move until it reaches a breaking point, and my concentration wanes with me opening my eyes.

As I did so I found myself drenched with sweat, the night sky already dark and the faint light coming from the candles inside the church. Standing up I went to our small bathing area we made for us with a frown. If it took so much for me to fail in creating something that I made by sheer accident back then, I wonder how long it would take to make Chunbumoon Breathing Technique or Yun Hon Soul Recovery, two staple skills I relied heavily back then and would really come in handy in the coming days.

Bell also looked beat since I told him to keep at his forms for a while, and once he got bored enough with then to switch into basic physical exercises I showed him then back to the forms. I'm not sure if physical training like that will help improve our status to a noticeable degree, but it's better than him doing nothing and gives me time to do my own thing instead of focusing exclusively on Bell.

"Mister Jee-han, you're back. I was getting worried since you were sitting outside for hours. If I may ask, what were you doing?" Asked Bell while coming with two plates of the local dish. We need to buy a stove and stop buying so much take out, but for now it should do.

"I was meditating and trying to unlock a new magical skill, a simple attack skill to use at range."

"I heard it's hard to learn magic." Said Bell while taking a bite of his food. "While I have the magic trait that only means I will eventually learn one spell, but until then it sits uselessly on my status. I'm a bit jealous that you can use magic already mister Jee-han."

"If you want I can teach you how it's done after I get it down. It shouldn't take too long since it's literally the most basic spell created from my world, but we will see how it works here."

"Now that would be nice, having magic I mean. Throwing fire, healing with a touch, even flying! That would be incredible..."

Oh yeah, I know what you're talking about Bell. When I finally learned how to fly I was really excited by it, and when I noticed that many land bound enemies were powerless to deal with me I crackled with glee. I let out a wistful sigh at the memories before digging in on the dish, some kind of sausage with vegetables.

I miss rice and soy sauce.

~~O~~

The next day we were early to go to the dungeon, and once more Bell stopped at the Hostess of Fertility, getting a home made lunch for himself from Syr. I waved at Ryuu as she passed to which she silently acknowledged us before once more throwing ourselves at the meat grinder that is the dungeon.

This time we decided to go to the sixth floor since the enemies were roughly the same as the fifth floor, except that no more dungeon lizards appeared. With the two main enemies being the Frog Shooter and the War Shadow we had nothing to fear since we were already used to dealing with them, and after testing out that on average their abilities where the same from the upper floor I resumed using taunt to increase our encounter rate.

The only thing worth of note from that encounter was that it took a long time to harvest the magic stones of every monster, though I noticed that any monsters I had inflicted a certain degree of damage would also instantly dissipate into dark smoke when killed, which would come in handy in the future.

After that as customary we went to the guild to exchange our earnings for the day, and we meet with Eina there. "Miss Eina", Bell said excitedly to our adviser, "look how much we made today!"

She smiled at Bell, before nodding. "That's wonderful Bell. You two aren't pushing things too hard, are you?"

"Actually progress is being slower than I hoped", I admitted to Eina and Bell looked at me like I had grown a second head, "because Bell is also there we take some time to gather all the magic stones, so even with an increased encounter rate it is mitigated by the fact that we spend a good time just carving up the monsters."

She nodded, already quickly accepting my, and thus Bell's, situation. "Perhaps you two might be interested into a supporter?"

"Supporter?" Both me and Bell said in stereo.

"A supporter is often an adventurer that tags along and helps the party by doing more supporting role, like carrying potions, magic stones, drop items and other equipment the party might need. If you two insist", at that word she glared at both me and Bell and we tried to act innocent, "on calling up a truly horrendous amount of enemies to yourselves, then having a supporter to help you clean up your battles might be to your interest."

"Hmm, splitting the loot three ways might lower our profit, on the other hand with us more focused on fighting we can deal with more enemies per minute, and thus getting more money out of the situation. Actually, it might work. We just need to find a supporter that's willing to help us since we end up being swarmed in monsters once we get things going", I said and Eina gave a mock glare to me which I ignored for now, "how does hiring a supporter works?"

She held her glare for a few more moments before sighing. "As your adviser I can look around to see which supporters are looking for groups", I snickered at her choice of words but didn't comment, making her raise an eyebrow at my antics, "but I will be busy tomorrow during the last day of Monsterphilia and there will be the clean up, so you two will need to wait two days for me to get back to you with a couple of good supporter candidates. But!" She said, holding our attention, "I want you two to promise me not to go deeper into the dungeon yet. Knowing you two you would probably try to do something really reckless like going to the seventh floor."

"Don't worry miss Eina, we stopped at the sixth floor. Besides, our Goddess isn't updating my status yet so I know it will be harder to reach those floors."

"Sixth floor already", she muttered while looking at the bag of money Bell was carrying. "I don't know if I should be happy at your quick advancement or annoyed that you two are blatantly ignoring my advise and getting into deeper floors after only so many days in the dungeon."

"How about be happily annoyed?" I helpfully supplied getting another glare from Eina. "Just a thought."

"If you want to go to deeper floors, you better stockpile on better equipment and plenty of supplies, like potions and such."

Bell nodded, "I was thinking on buying something new for myself soon, and we are always stock pilling potions bought by the Miach Familia."

"That's good", she said with a relieved tone, "though if you can wait a bit, I would want to show you a good place to buy new equipment", she paused for a moment before turning to me, "you too Jee-han. While you are earning quite a bit of money alongside Bell, it's better not to expend it all at once on equipment since high quality ones can be very expensive."

I grimaced, "I saw the prices on some of the stores." At eight hundred thousand vali those things are scrapping the bottom tier on a MMORPG usual price list range since they are usually on the one million to forty million gold pieces depending on their rarity. Right now both me and Bell were beginners, despite what some might think with our earnings, and such expensive equipment are still beyond our reach right now. Yet I found it lacking in granularity since the price shot up from the four thousand vali from my sword I got from the guild instead of finding a place with more reasonable prices. "Do you know somewhere that sells equipment at reasonable prices?"

"As a matter of fact, I do. If you two promise not to do anything reckless while I'm busy with Monsterphilia then I will show you two the stores."

"Deal. Now I think we will be off, unless Bell wants to talk with you some more?"

"No, I'm good. Thanks for all your hard work miss Eina."

"Then take care Bell, Jee-han. See you in a few days."

With those last parting words we headed back to our home and back to more training, with sparring, exercises, form training and meditation. Not much advancement was done today, though I think I managed to edge a few seconds more of coaxing my mana to act, though you never know with the way my meditation works.

Still, we had a good day going and earned quite a bit of money. Perhaps we can take the day off tomorrow and visit Monsterphilia? I probably had to run that by Bell since he's quite excited at being able to fight against so many monsters, but I'm sure he will like the opportunity to visit the festival since he isn't a local.

Perhaps we will ever run into Hestia during that time, who knows?


	5. Monsterphilia 2

AN: I just realized that I had skipped a good portion of the chapter when I updated it first time, now here is the rest of the chapter, split into two since the site apparently doesn't want to let me update chapters with more than 9.5k words.

~~~~~~~~OOOO~~~~~~~~

Next day started early as usual, with both of us going to the Dungeon when we were interrupted by a voice calling us.

"Hey nya~ can you please come here nya~?"

Looking back it was one of the girls from the Hostess of Fertility pub calling at us. After we both greeted her she handled to Bell a small coin purse.

"What I want is for you to handle the coin purse to that careless Syr nya."

... come again?

"I'm sorry?" Asked Bell as confused as me from her request, when Ryuu came to greet us.

"Anya, that's not enough of an explanation." Ryuu said while holding a basket with some white sheets in it. "Mister Jee-han and Bell are confused."

"Ryuu's so dumb nya~, of course he knows that I want him to deliver to Syr her wallet since she went to view the Monsterphilia fair."

"That's the situation", finished Ryuu, "of course, Syr isn't skipping but instead she is using one of her vacation days to visit the fair."

"Hmm... must be really busy in the pub with all the possible tourists coming in and out", I mused, "did either of you went to the earlier days of the fair?"

"I didn't nya~"

"I have no interest in going."

"Pity", I said with a fake dejected sigh, "I would really have liked to see you two in something other than the pub uniform." I finished with a grin to the two of them.

Arnya the cat girl just put her hand in her mouth and giggled which considering the small amount of experience I had, thanks master Loli, was translated into 'polite, cute equivalent of an eye roll'. As expected from the lousy pick up line I performed.

As for Ryuu she didn't visibly react much, other than silently narrow her eyes slightly enough that if you were paying attention you could see it, but if you missed the opportunity you might confuse that with her natural eye shape. Which basically meant she was onto me. Gee woman, can't you take a joke or a light, harmless flirting? it's not like I'm ogling at either her or her friends breasts or anything.

This time the sigh was more tired. "Well, we can certainly do that", I answered which Bell nodded. "I was meaning to look at the festival since it started and I have some expending money anyway. Do any of you have anything to recommend to see there as locals?"

"The food stands are nice nya~, and the coliseum is always an spectacle nya, too bad you need tickets to watch it nya."

"If you're into it, there are specialty items that are released only during this festival", said Ryuu which perked my inner Gamers collector OCD, "figurines, booklets and autographed picture copies of famous adventurers are also sold if you know where to look."

At this Bell perked up, looking at Ryuu. "Does that means that Aiz Wallenstein might have an autographed picture?"

"While possible, it's unlikely. She doesn't seen the type to advertise herself like that, and Loki Familia isn't hurting for money for her to try and make such a contract. If you find some of them they are likely made without her consent and painted from memory while any autographed would be fakes, though the guild makes sure to take off those illegal goods before they can tarnish the reputation of the adventurer."

Ah, merchandising and pirated goods, that little bit of trans universal commonality that warms my heart.

"We will keep that in mind", I was about to say my farewells and turn around when a thought ocured to me. "Would you want something from the fair?" I said in the general direction of both of the women in front of us, to address both of them at the same time without calling their names. "As a thanks for the heads up", and to Ryuu as a peace offering. Hopefully she doesn't take that wrong.

"If you want to give me something I want the figurine of Siegfried nya~!" Said Arnya almost immediately and I nodded.

"It's not necessary to give us anything", replied evenly Ryuu, looking impatient if the way she keeps looking sideways and to Arnya was any indication.

I nodded, though I would still bring something to her if only as a bribe to see if we can get cool with each other later. I should also stop flirting when in her presence if it makes her either uncomfortable or annoyed, though it's not like my flirting ever went anywhere being more of a light teasing act and joking considering I'm using blatantly bad pickup lines. Heh, you don't survive Sae-young noona training without either becoming a blushing, stuttering mess when she's going all out, or adapting and using her own weapons against her and try to one up her a bit.

Guess I unconsciously try to flirt with females with a penchant to squash me like a bug. Sweet Gaia I can't believe I even made a pass to master Loli once. Granted I was under the Drunk status effect at the time which was one of the few times my mental capacities were impaired, but still I should have know better.

"I will try to get that figurine for you if it's possible, hopefully there's still some being sold. Well, if that's all?"

"Right", said Bell while bowing to the two women, "we will be off then. Thank you for telling me of the pictures."

As we were walking back I turned my head to see Ryuu getting ready to enter the pub when I called out to her. "I will make up to you later miss Ryuu."

With those last parting words, we proceeded to try and find Syr where the Monsterphilia was being held. After a few minutes walking, I decided that I need to address something important to Bell. Hope you appreciate my efforts Hestia.

"Hey Bell?"

"Hm? What is it mister Jee-han?"

"Better not to talk about or show to Hestia the whole Aiz pictures thing."

"What, why?"

"It would be rude. I mean, I doubt Hestia would like to see you looking at Aiz picture and sighing wistfully, not to say doing other things."

"Doing other things?"

"If you don't get it, forget I said anything for the sake of both of our sanity."

"... ooookay?"

Ugh, now I almost taught this innocent boy about hiding his softcore porn stash. I'm a failure as an honorable big brother figure. "Let's just find Syr and enjoy the festival alright?"

He nodded, still a bit confused, but getting more excited as time passed. While I wasn't visibly reacting like him, I also was getting excited to attending Monsterphilia, both as an adventurer and as a tourist. Perhaps I could even bring in someone else alongside me as a date in the future?

Heh, that would be the day, going on a date with someone that didn't misunderstood the situation, isn't forcing herself due to a debt of honor or have an actual idea of what going on a date really means. I guess that happened a grand total of one time with Kim Yoo-Jin when we tried out after she was kidnapped from the whole Great Labyrinth fiasco.

It didn't end well.

"What's up mister Jee-han, you just sounded so tired right now."

"Just remembered my luck with women, or the absolute lack of it. Don't worry, it's business as usual so I'm used to it."

With those last words we resumed walking in silence, and soon we had arrived at the portion of the city where the Monsterphilia festival was being held, and just as I expected it was full of activity. Now, to find Syr and hopefully have a good time relaxing.

~~O~~

"Now, where Syr would be?" Bell said while looking around, "any idea mister Jee-han?"

"Perhaps on the coliseum? It's where the main event is being held, after all."

Bell was about to respond when a loud voice came from behind us.

"Bell! Jee-han!"

Turning around we saw Hestia coming towards us. She had a sash around her back meaning she was carrying something, and while she was as perky as usual I could see her slight shaking common to sleep deprivation. I wonder if they have coffee here. That aside I thought quickly and turned to Bell. "Hey Bell, can you give me the coin purse to me?"

"Did you spot Syr?"

"Something like that", I said, getting the coin purse before I turned Bell and pushed him towards Hestia.

"Hue?"

"Go have fun you two. I will look for Syr alone, it's not like you need two people to look after her and splitting up to search wouldn't have worked really well since the point is to give the coin purse to her."

"But I can't-"

I interrupted Bell with a quick slap to the back of his head, earning a soft 'ouch' from him. "Be a good boy and escort your goddess through the festival, if I remember it right it's also her first time attending it. Go, have a good time, then come back to me when you're done alright?"

"Alright, I guess", he reluctantly said before taking a closer look at Hestia who had a radiant smile on her before she latched on his arm. He had a deep blush as Hestia chest pressed against his arm and he looked between me and her not knowing what to do. I just shooed him away while giving a wink to Hestia who returned a smile at me, before I mingled with the crowd and decided to look for something nice.

~~O~~

Walking around I asked were I could find some of the pictures and figurines where sold. If I were to start looking for Syr might as well start there, right? It didn't take long to find the booths, and lucky for me there wasn't a line or anything on them right at this time. On the other hand, the place was almost empty of merchandise.

"Sorry", said the merchant, "but the Siegfried figurines sold out on the first day, he's a really popular adventurer after all. But if you're interested in figurines, I think I have something in the back", at those last words he sounded quite shifty so I shook my head.

"What about pictures?"

"Oh, I have some of them here", he pointed out some books hanging on the booth, "though I have some of the really good stuff in the back."

Do I look like a shifty individual for him to be trying to pass off the shady merchandise? Is it the eyes? I don't see too many people with asian features, and while compared with Sun-Il I didn't had the thin eyes look I still had thinner eyes than normal people. Or is it how I'm dressed right now? Well, he could always be a shady merchant that's out of the common merchandise and is not trying to pass off the suspicious stuff. Don't they have cops in this town?

Rolling my eyes I picked up a book and started browsing it. There were a couple of images from several adventurers, some male others female, most of them in some kind of heroic pose while others were in either a picture snap shoot or in a profile pose. All of them were autographed though I couldn't read the names. Truth be told, nothing I saw interested me at the moment.

"Ah, I see you are a tricky customer. Perhaps do you want to see our more... exotic collection?"

It could be porn for all I knew, and even thought I don't have Internet anymore to sate some of my baser desires I wasn't in a rush to consume this worlds pornography. I put down the book back in place, when the wind blew and a couple of sheets of pictures from the stand. I went to pick them up, when I noticed a particular picture.

It was of a woman wearing a cape with a flower like hood, wearing a sleeveless shirt and high tights boots and detached arm sleeves, a pair of short swords at her waist and holding a staff on her left hand.

Muttering observe I took a look at what it was.

Adventurer Picture, Old  
An old picture of a female adventurer from a now extinct Familia.

Not much information, other than the somewhat useful trivia about her Familia being extinct, but other than that there wasn't anything of note. And yet...

"How much for this one?" I asked the vendor as I gave him the rest of the paper sheets.

"Hmm", he took a look at the picture, seeing that no author had signed it and it didn't had the adventurer signature. Still the paper was a bit old and crumbled at the edges, clearly indicating age. "How about four hundred Valis?"

I mulled over trying to haggle with the man, but decided against it. I took a couple of coins from my inventory surprising the man before I headed off to one of the food stands, when I saw something ahead. There was some kind of white ape jumping and sometimes going above the buildings.

"There's a monster roaming the city!" Said one man coming from the rough direction the monster had appeared, "he's chasing a boy and a little girl with a big chest."

I immediately stopped, and only the effects of Gamer's Mind prevented me from freezing up. "Where did they go?" I asked the man who came running. "I think I know them, they're my friends! Where are they!"

"Ah, I think they went to the Daedalus Street", he said and I took off to where I saw the ape monster going.

In a sense I knew that wishing for someone else to be chased by the ape monster was selfish, even if Bell could at least protect Hestia long enough to run away from harm, but I couldn't help it. While I knew them only for a few days, they had quickly gotten high in my regards, I would even dare say they were my friends while I hopped the reverse where also true.

I prayed to a being that couldn't hear me anymore for strength as I ran and jumped over crates and people towards the Daedalus Street. Hestia had given me the rundown of some of the more notorious districts of the city, the poor district being one of them since she spent some time living there before she meet with Bell and headed to our current home. Once there I tried to listen for the sounds of fighting, or yells and cries of help, or anything that could lead me to them.

"GROOOAAAARRR!"

Without thinking twice I ran towards the sound until I saw the ape monster's back, running after someone. Looking up I saw a ladder and a plan quickly formed in my mind. Quickly going up on the ladder I started running across the roofs, taking advantage of both the increased agility I had gathered until now and the fact that all roofs were interconnected like this, and in no time I caught up to the ape monster. "Observe"

Silverback  
Race: Ape  
Class: Monster

Level: 1

Health: [GREEN]  
Mana: [X]

Power C  
Endurance C  
Agility B  
Dexterity F  
Magic I

Mentally I tsked, that's a though nut to crack all things considered. With a quick switch to my inventory I put I armor and took my weapon, confirming that I still had all those potions with me. Looking ahead I saw that the monster was about to crush Bell, so I took a run and jumped from the ledge and swung my sword straight into the arm of the Silverback as it rose to strike Bell, careful to aim outside the creature's manacles. The ape monster shrieked loudly in pain as I jumped away from the retaliatory strike of the monster, right where Bell had rolled over for cover.

"Mister Jee-han?" Bell looked surprised at seeing me, "how did you got here?"

I spared a glance towards the kid, noting that he was unarmed. "I followed the trail of destruction. You should leave this to me since you are unarmed."

The monster was growling at me but it wasn't immediately running after us, cautious at seeing someone being able to deal this much damage against it.

"I... I can't! I can't just leave you here to fight against him by yourself!"

Was it pride talking, or something else? No, it can't be pride since Bell as a rule of thumb have a poor opinion of himself, at least when you consider that made startling progress in such a small amount of time and yet he doesn't think it's enough. To be honest with myself his resolve to fight is endearing, but I can't let him fight unarmed and his overall stats aren't that much higher than mine even with the huge boost he got before Hestia went to Monsterphilia.

Still a cornered animal would fight to the dead, and I didn't want Bell to face off against this monster with his bare hands, so I gave him an out.

"Go", I said to him while stepping forwards with my sword poised down and blocking his view with my back, "find a weapon and then come back to help me fight this enemy." I could basically feel his protests but I interrupted him before he could start. "Think of this as a mere tactical retreat while you look for a weapon while I hold him off for you. Just don' take too long, least I end up killing it by myself."

The creature locked down it's gaze with mine and charge. "GO! What are you waiting for, an invitation?" The monster swung it's arms and I had to dodge both the swing from his arm and the chain that followed in it's trail. Rolling inside it's guard under his legs I cut him behind his tight earning another howl of pain before it circled around, trying to kick me which I narrowly avoided by dropping on my back and rolling backwards before running back near the middle of the patio, getting the undivided attention of the silverback on me.

"I will be back!" Said Bell through gritted teeth, "I will definitely come back!"

I thought for a moment he would stay and try to fight anyway with a stick on his hand, but he did the smart thing and ran away and I allowed myself a sigh of relief.

"GROOOAAAARRRR!"

Now, how do I cook this enemy?

It charged on all fours towards me before stopping and slashing both his arms left and right, forcing me to roll under his legs once more and into the creature's back before I managed another slash on it's leg. This time however it didn't howl in pain and instead continued it's assault. The chain hit me and threw me a couple of meters back, making me skip along the ground for a few moments before I rolled with my momentum and using the wall I hit as a trampoline to boost myself to the side just as the monsters came crashing down on me.

With a quick look at my status I confirmed that I was on yellow health, and quickly I took a potion and uncorked it's cap while the monster was far away. I had just enough time to roll back to avoid the chains once more before standing up and taking a good look at my enemy.

I couldn't help it. Something inside me stirred, a feeling I didn't had in a long while.

Excitement, true, unmitigated excitement. The kind of hidden joy I had after I defeated tough enemies like the Zombie Legion for the first time, or when survived an encounter that by any rights I shouldn't had. The kind of elation at having a plan going off without a hitch.

The kind of happiness a player have one encountering a difficult opponent that's both entertaining and hard enough to press you to your limits.

Back when everything started I didn't recognized those feelings, or simply didn't acknowledged them as I thought that was an abnormal thought process, but as the months and years passed I came to accept that part of me, reasoning it was part of what allowed me to gain my powers in the first place. That yearning that life should be as exciting as a video game.

"Ah, ah ah ah ahh, tum dum. Ah, ah ah ah ahh, tum dum", I chanted under my breath, thinking of the soundtrack of an old, if very good game. It also suited the situation really well. The silverback tilted it's head in confusion, before roaring once more and charging at me.

True to gamer fashion, I took my time to decipher the attack patterns of this monster now that I had some breathing room and knew where we stood in terms of power and speed. It was fast, faster than me, but not overwhelmingly so. It's reflexes also were comparatively slower since his large bulk made moving his body a chore.

Still I used two more health potions to heal myself before I was comfortable with attacking once more. I knew that a living being is different from a coded game enemy, but there's only so many ways you can attack someone or something, and an individual have it's own preferences in terms of attacks not to count tells and vices while attacking. Even more so with a creature that fights merely on instinct with little skill. Not only that but I had the advantage of stamina since it takes a lot for me to start getting winded in the first place, and the monster while having a higher endurance than myself it also wasn't infinite, and differently from me it would suffer from each hit I gave it.

When the monster raised it's arm high to crush me I dashed quickly forwards and slashed at it's knee, quickly dodging to the side as the monster brought it's fists down, leaving a few cracks on the floor.

When the creature swing it's arms towards me, I either roll under the chains taking advantage that due to my height it will have to aim high enough to hit my center of mass that it leaves a good enough gap to dodge, or I jump over the attack when it attacks low. I also make sure never to jump over the chain when it initiates the attack with it's left arm since it can quickly use it's right arm to attack me while I'm mid air.

Slowly but certainly I am wittering the creature's health, going from full to three quarters in five to eight minutes of fighting, then edging to yellow territory once I score a lucky hit on it's inner tight and effectively killing one of it's legs, the one that I had been focusing all this time.

I was starting to make head way to it's left arm to create an entire blind spot and weak point on that side when the creature roared once more, it's red eyes shining brightly before it started beating at it's chest. I quickly took that moment to dash to it before it could do whatever it wanted, aiming at it's other tight. The attack hit on the side of it's knee before I was hit on the side by a much powerful blow than before sending me tumbling on the ground before I caught myself up, using the momentum to dodge the follow up strike from the creature.

It took my second last potion getting back to yellow health before I took a good look at the silverback. It's power and speed had grew considerably, but it's attacks where somewhat more sloopy than before. It was only the quickness of the strikes that managed to catch me once more, but once I have time to adapt to the new attack pattern I will be able to deal with it. Still the situation was getting a bit harder for me since I was running out of potions and the creature was still at high yellow health.

Time for some more strategizing then. I saw that a couple of the magic stone lamps were on the ground after falling from our fight so I quickly raw towards one of them. As predicted the silverback followed me and with a quick and practiced roll I took the lamp and I threw with all my might at it's eyes. The creature howled as it was blinded, and I turned around it to repeatedly stab at the back of it's last good leg and it's kidneys.

My tactic worked and the creature was much slower than before overall, though it still could charge for short periods of time before bringing in it's large fists towards me. Still annoying, but now it was much more manageable than the last time, not only that but it's health bar had dropped to a third of it's total.

Good, I might be able to do this!

Just as I thought that the silverback charged me, jumping high in the air trying to crush me under it's weight. A tactic I knew well enough which I responded by rolling forwards and-

"OOOOOHHHH!"

A crushing sound and the sounds of someone landing, and when I realized it I was staring at Bells back turned from me, the silverback landing unceremoniously on the ground with a last, pitiful moan, before dispersing itself into black smoke and leaving it's oversised magic stone and the weapon Bell used to kill the monster.

I blinked once, twice, before standing up and looking at Bell who was breathing hard. He turned back to me with a frown, but that turned to a relieved smile once he saw me unharmed.

"I told you I would come back and help mister Jee-han!"

I slowly nodded, before we both walked towards the fallen magic stone and the weapon on the ground, with Bell picking it up. I used Observe on it once, and I whistled at it's stats. It's base attack and defense values weren't all that good, in fact they were quite bad, but it had a very, very large durability value and in it's description it gave an unnamed bonus to attack and defense depending on the user's strength, which I can only assume it is a large bonus since Bell took off a third of the silverback health with a single strike which was a large chunk even if you account for critical hits, not only that but it was a weapon tied to the Hestia Familia so if anyone outside our Familia were to use it it would only have it's deplorable base attack and defense values.

I also looked at the pop up box that appeared once the silverback had been killed.

Through a special action the skill Sword Mastery was created!  
Sword Mastery  
A skill to determine one's proficiency with sword type weapons. Skill effectiveness increase with higher user level and higher ? rank.  
Moderate increase to Power and Dexterity when using a sword type weapon.  
Low increase to Endurance and Agility when using a sword type weapon.

Of course I get the skill that would have helped me fight off the enemy AFTER I kill the monster. I guess I traded my power giving colorful commentary when I get or use skills for the skill acquisition gaining a liking for the dramatic and ironic.

Figures.

"You know, when I asked you to come back after finding a weapon I didn't meant for you to make an artifact grade custom weapon." I jokingly said as we walked through the alley as the windows of the houses started to open and see that it was indeed safe once more.

"It was Hestia that gave me this knife", he said while raising it to eye level and the runes inscribed on it shimmered with power, "she made it for me. She said if I believed I could defeat my enemies with it, and with this she would always be at my side."

"Hmm, sounds nice. You should be prepared to take responsibility Bell, in some cultures that might be considered a wedding gift", I said with a teasing tone though only half joking. In the abyss very expensive items might count as a form of courtship gifts, even if the item in question was a weapon. Though I suppose giving expensive, special items would count as courting gifts regardless of being in the Abyss or not.

Bell was beet red and started sputtering a response when we saw Hestia on sitting on her knees, waving at us before she faltered, collapsing on the ground.

"Hestia/Goddess!" We both said at the same time before dashing towards the little goddess.

I don't know what happened, but please Gaia, let her be alright!

~~O~~

Name: Han Jee-han

Power H 122 - G 201  
Endurance H 111 - H 196  
Agility H 117 - G 209  
Dexterity H 135 - G 215  
Magic I 98 - H 131

~~O~~

"How's she mister Jee-han", Bell asked to me after I came out of Hestia's temporary room on the Hostess of Fertility bar. Looks like aside from being a pub it also doubles as an Inn in an emergency.

"Tired", I told him, "she's physically fine, not hurt or anything, no diseases or poisons in her system so the only reason she collapsed must be fatigue. I saw her shaking when we meet today which is an indicator of lack of sleep, but I thought that since she was unlikely to do anything strenuous I let it go and would just recommend her to rest when she came back home. Turns out she would be chased by a monster on the city today, just shows what I know."

We both sighed and I ushered Bell inside the room for him to watch over her. They had slept on the same room for a while already and I doubt Bell would have the guts to do something inappropriate with her. It's more likely for the opposite to be true.

As I descended the stairs I meet with the other girls of the pub. "How are your goddess faring mister Jee-han?" Asked Syr with a worried tone.

"Well enough I guess. Tired to the point of collapsing on the ground from lack of sleep, but other than that she's unharmed. Bell managed to protect her well enough before I arrived to help him."

"You must be really strong to be able to deal with that monster nya~, the Monsterphilia fair usually uses monsters from the tenth floor and down nya". Arnya gave her two cents from Syr side and I just shrugged. "What was the monster you fought nya?"

"It was a silverback, about as tall as a house."

"That's rather impressive Jee-han", said Ryuu from behind me and I turned around, I also could almost see a hint of disappointment in her expression. Heh, you're not going to truly make me react now that I know how to fully abuse Gamer's Mind miss Ryuu. "A silverback comes from the eleventh floor, that being the average floor the monsters came from as Arnya stated, and thus is on the threshold for a level one adventurer to defeat before going to the level two. How did you do it?"

"It was tricky, but not necessarily hard. His hide was tough and he was fast, but as a dumb animal it's movements and tactics were predictable and after some time I managed to read it's actions in advance. I keep dealing damage to it little by little, sapping at it's strength while conserving mine. Even when the creature became enraged it only enhanced it's strength and charge speed, but since I had already deeply damaged it's legs it had a limp where I could dodge with impunity and deal with it at my own leisure. Of course I wasn't fast enough to kill it before Bell came back and finished it off himself though."

Thinking back on the sheer damage that Bell had done to the monster I frowned. That was a lot of damage and we were nearly at the same level of strength today. Then again Bell status wasn't updated since Hestia was away, but certainly the difference in power wasn't that great? Was that the effects of the weapon Bell got? If so, it must have cost a lot of money to buy it.

Money Hestia probably didn't had.

"Is something the matter Jee-han?" Asked Ryuu and I shook my head.

"Just thinking a few things about my Familia, noting to worry about. By the way Arnya, I couldn't find Siegfried figurine, they were apparently all sold out."

"I knew nya~, it was a long shot anyway nya."

"As for you Ryuu", I said pulling the picture from my inventory, "when I found this I thought about you. Maybe you could have it, as a peace offering?"

Ryuu blinked, not really knowing what to say. "Peace offering?"

"Well, apparently I made you uncomfortable the few times we talked. On hindsight I think I know why that would be the case since not everyone appreciates the kind of humor I grew used to", Sae-Young noona, was as previously stated a flirt and master Loli was rather chill about it all things considered, "so I brought this to you so we could be cool with each other", at her blank stare I amended my statement, "sorry, slang from where I came from. I meant we could start over better."

She looked between me and the folded picture on her hands for a few moments, before opening it. At first surprised before she visibly frowned instead of subtly changed her facial expression, and she gave me back the picture, her voice frosty. "I thank your intentions, but I cannot accept this Jee-han."

She was clearly upset, and I sighed and nodded, before folding it up once more. I was ready to tear it apart when she stopped me. "What are you doing?"

I just raised an eyebrow at her. "Don't worry I will clean up after myself."

"That's not what I meant", she said with a bit more emotion on her voice. "Didn't you buy it? Why doesn't you want to keep it for yourself?"

"Well, clearly you're upset about the picture", why she would be upset by it was still a mystery. My theory was that it was a picture of herself and she was somehow ashamed of it, perhaps a sore point in her past? Or it could be someone else she knew and she was angry at her? It could go either way to be honest. "And I would feel like a real bad guy if I keep it to myself while it distressed you so much. Besides it was a gift, if you don't want it then it's value is lost to me."

Once more her emotions played on her face, before she sighed. "You're a really strange man, Jee-han", she finally said before hesitantly taking the picture. "If it's alright for me to have it, then I will accept your gift. You should also consider that we are 'cool with each other' now."

I scratched the back of my head at this turn of events. Not really how I envisioned it, but I will get what I can. "Thanks, I guess."

"Usually it's the person who receives the gift that giver their thanks", Ryuu said with a hint of amusement in her voice and I just shrugged.

"Not really used to this whole thing to be honest. Anyway, how much do I owe the pub for renting the room?"

"Oh no", finally said Syr, snapping from her daze as she witnessed our byplay, "it was my fault that you all got involved in that awful event. If I didn't forget to bring my coin purse none of this would have happened mister Jee-han."

"It wasn't your fault that the monster had escape it's cage", I pointed out to her, "and we might have gone anyway since I was curious to see the festival. If it is anybody's fault, it was those watching the cages that did a poor job of securing it."

"It's strange though", said Ryuu, "the Ganesha family have been doing it for a long time now. It's basically unheard off for this accident to happen."

I nodded at the point. Perhaps it was a mere accident, perhaps it was sabotage, but unless more information came to light we would probably never know.

Upon hearing the soft steps from the stairs we turned around and saw Hestia and Bell coming to greet us. "Sorry for making you all worry about me", she said in an apologetic tone, "I think I overdid it a little and in my excitement I overestimated myself. It's an understandable mistake for gods who descended recently from Heaven, but I was on Earth for several months now. I should have know better."

I took a single step forwards and flicked her nose. "Oie!"

"We all make mistakes", I told her, "Gaia knows that I pulled all-nighters often enough back in the day. Just don't make an habit out of it and do this only when it's really important that you finish a job right away, otherwise sleeping is always the superior option."

"Alright", I said clapping my hands, "how about we celebrate the end of the fair on the pub? My treat!"

Suddenly Hestia looked like I had said something really outrageous. "But Jee-han, you shouldn't be expending your hard earned money so carelessly!"

"Meh, we made quite a bit of money yesterday and I'm feeling like partying after defeating the silverback. We can also cash the magic stone he dropped later which should cover some of the costs anyway so it won't be nearly as expensive as it sounds. Don't worry, I got this covered!" I finished with a smile.

Hestia tried to protest, but Bell put a hand on her shoulder. "He was really worried about you before he confirmed that you were alright. I think he want to express how relieved he is by you being alright goddess."

That's surprisingly insightful from Bell, and at his cute rabbit look Hestia relented.

Thus we finished the night with a small private celebration on the Hostess of Fertility, with good food and drinks aplenty. I didn't cared about shouldering the bill by myself, and I was starting to feel like I belonged to this world, to this town. Things might not always go according to plan, but I'm used to it by now. I just need to get stronger, regain my lost skills and magic to make sure this event would never repeat itself in the future.

I lost everything once already, I'm not going to lose it once again.

Hestia raised her mug of beer. "For the success of our Familia!"

"For the sake of our dreams", said Bell raising his own ginger ale cup.

"For new beginnings", I said while raising my own wine glass.

"CHEERS!"


End file.
